


You Always Want What You're Running From

by whovianmuse



Category: Sleepy Hollow (TV)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, F/M, slow-build romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-08
Updated: 2014-01-03
Packaged: 2017-12-28 19:24:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 38,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/995607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whovianmuse/pseuds/whovianmuse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Abbie invites Ichabod to come and live with her. It's probably a mistake.</p><p>(A series of one-shots: domestic fluff and a slow-build romance. The series title was inspired by the song <i>Bittersweet</i> by Ellie Goulding)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Home

            It’s the desolate look on his face that finally does it.

            After five and a half hours of scouring stacks of manuscripts and religious texts for even the tiniest hint of information that might help them better understand what’s coming for them, Abbie has had _enough_. She’s slumped in the worn, leather cushion of an old armchair in their newly converted headquarters, eyelashes fluttering against her cheekbones as she battles exhaustion. Those energy drinks simply aren’t cutting it tonight…and Crane has barely touched his. He’s not letting on, but she can tell that it’s hitting him, too. She has a sneaking suspicion that he does it on purpose, that he knows she won’t head home until they’ve both given up for the night, that he doesn’t _want_ her to leave…because then he’ll be left all alone.

            Over the past couple of days, it had become evident that Crane had essentially begun living out of the old archives. She’d caught him sleeping in his armchair in the morning more than once, his tattered and dirt-embellished boots propped up on the table, exactly as she’d left him the night before. She’d supposed it made sense…here, he could work in private, think in silence, and he wouldn’t be bothered with the long walk back to the hotel or its distressing customs (which was probably all for the best, both for Crane _and_ the hotel staff.) Still, it must get lonely in there, come nighttime…all that silence…all those scattered, indistinct memories fighting their way back up to the surface. Two hundred and fifty years is a long time.

            Pity and guilt manifest into a suffocating ball that sits at the back of her throat. Because she knows exactly what that feels like. Because that look he’s giving her, even when he thinks he’s being subtle, is all too familiar. As frightened and lost and confused as she is, she can’t even begin to imagine what all of this must be like for him…to have woken up in a different era, where everyone you once knew and loved has been dead for centuries, where the customs, the clothing, the food, even the _air_ , is completely different…it must be terrifying. In that moment, she realizes that _she is all he has_ , that she is the only person he’s willing to trust, to follow blindly into a demon’s dream world and risk his own life to save hers.

            It’s the least she could do.

            “Crane,” she says, straightening up and hoisting herself from her chair into a standing position. Ichabod snaps out of his apparent reverie and fixes her with a frown.

            “Lieutenant? You’re leaving, I presume?” he asks, feigning indifference.

            “Yeah, and you’re coming home with me,” she says, adjusting her gun in its holster as a means to avoid looking directly at him.

            “Are you quite sure? I certainly don’t want to be a burden,” he says, fighting a smile.

            “It’s fine. You need a place to stay for a little while, and I’ve got a spare room.”

            The room was, of course, meant for Jenny, as was every spare room in every apartment Abbie had lived in over the past couple of years…but it was far too optimistic of her to assume that Jenny would be needing it any time soon.

            “I would greatly appreciate it, Lieutenant. Thank you. I do not know how to repay you for this kindness,” he says, his expression a mix of relief, elation, and fatigue.

            “You took a scorpion sting for me. As far as I’m concerned, we’re square,” she laughs.

            Abbie leads him across the parking lot to her car, twirls the radio dial to a soft lull, and watches him out of the corner of her eye. He has his hands pressed to the passenger’s seat window, no doubt leaving oily fingerprints as he stares out into the night with childlike wonder, the rolling fields and valleys slinking past them in a series of silhouetted waves. In that moment, she realizes just how much she appreciates his company, his very existence.

            She’ll tell herself, over and over again like a mantra, that it’s because she feels indebted to him, that she feels bad for him, that it’ll make their casework much easier if she can keep a constant eye on him, that it’s _convenient_. But really, it’s because, in spite of everything, in spite of an impending apocalypse that only they, the unwilling witnesses, can prevent, he keeps her grounded, keeps her sane. For reasons she can’t explain, she trusts him. She hasn’t trusted anyone like this since Corbin…and now, Crane is all she has left. In his company, she feels secure. Protected. Cared for. They’ve only known each other for a short while, and yet…Crane’s company feels like home.

            Besides…how bad could living with a man from the 1700’s really be?


	2. Shower

            Quite appallingly bad, apparently.

            Ichabod stands in the middle of Abbie’s living room looking spectacularly (and consequently, hilariously) lost, his arms laden with all manner of shower supplies that Abbie had bought for him at Target that morning. Other than a few minor mishaps involving a shattered lightbulb and burnt fingertips, Ichabod had adjusted to his first night living in the spare room of Abbie’s apartment relatively well. But of course, that wouldn’t last long.

            “Is all of this really necessary? Will not water itself make me clean? And what exactly am I meant to do with this contraption?” Ichabod asks with a disgruntled huff, brandishing his new toothbrush at her and nearly dropping his new bottles of shampoo and shower gel in the process. Abbie rolls her eyes and hands him a tube of toothpaste.

            “Crane, you woke up in an underground cave grave after a two hundred and fifty year siesta. Trust me, you need all the help you can get when it comes to personal hygiene…and this stuff will definitely make a dent in scrubbing that nasty zombie scent off of you.”

            “I don’t quite understand what you mean by _zombie_ , but I suppose you are the expert when it comes to navigating this century, so I shall trust your judgment…though the perfumed concoctions you have given me are rather pungent for my tastes,” he says, sniffing the little glass bottle of cologne and then immediately holding it at arms’ length, his face all scrunched up like he’d just licked a lemon wedge. Then, realizing that that might’ve come across as rude, he adds, “Thank you all the same, Lieutenant.”

            “Could’ve just said that in the first place,” she sighs. “Come on, I’ll show you how everything works. My bathroom’s a little different from the one at the hotel. Plus, I figure an in-person lesson is probably better than reading handwritten notes, anyway.”

            “Yes, and while I greatly appreciated the gesture, I must say that it did not work in my favor. That horrible excuse for a bathing basin shot water directly into my eyes. I could have drowned!” Ichabod exclaims, shuddering at the memory of it.

            Abbie stifles a laugh as Crane follows her into the bathroom, tripping on the ends of the plaid pajama pants she’d let him borrow as they slide down his skinny waist. They were an old pair of Luke’s from when he used to stay over, and for once, Abbie was relieved to have found something of his lying around. Ichabod towered over Abbie like a goddamned Ent…there was no way in hell his gangly legs would fit into any of _her_ clothes. He’s having enough trouble with the t-shirt she’d let him borrow as it is.

            Without even thinking about it, her eyes slink down his torso and settle on the patch of exposed skin where the tightly-clinging fabric had ridden up over his stomach. Her mind briefly flickers to an image of him lying on a table, strapped down and shirtless, his tall, lanky figure writhing against his restraints, chest heaving with labored breaths as he awoke from Ro'kenhrontyes’ dream world…Abbie blinks a couple of times as the image fades, wondering where in the hell that train of thought came from, and shakes her head. She hasn’t had her coffee yet, so whatever crazy, ridiculous notions her brain brews up at this god-awful hour of the morning can’t be held against her.

            Abbie makes a mental note to eventually take him shopping for some proper-fitting clothes of his own.

            Lacking in post-it notes and patience, she points to everything in the bathroom and briefly explains its name and its use, twists the hot and cold water knobs on the shower wall, shows him how to adjust the shower head to his preferred height, how to floss and brush his teeth (every minute of which he’d hated, of course), how to properly flush the toilet, wash his hands in the sink, and dry them using hand towels. Once she’s confident that he can handle it on his own, she sets the last of his supplies on the counter, says, “Welp…have a good shower, try not to drown, and call if you need anything, I guess,” and attempts to shut the door, but Crane blocks it with his slipper-clad foot.

            “Lieutenant, forgive me for my lack of knowledge on the customs and practices of this era, but I do have another question concerning the concept of bathing in this century. Are we…will we be sharing the water?” he asks, completely nonchalant.

            Abbie nearly has a heart attack.

            “Hold on…did you seriously just ask me to shower with you?”

            “I…I don’t understand…is that no longer the custom?” he asks, composure faltering.

            “No! Oh my god, Crane. No, it’s definitely not…I mean, not unless you’re…you know what? Nope. Never mind. I am _so_ not going _anywhere near there_. There is not enough coffee in the _world_ that could convince me to have that conversation with you.”

            Ichabod’s eyebrows knit together in confusion, his head tilted to the side as he contemplates Abbie’s alarming change in disposition…moments later, it all clicks together in his head, and suddenly his expression of shock and embarrassment is identical to Abbie’s.

            “Oh! Oh my goodness, no. You misunderstand me, Lieutenant. It was not my intention to offend you, and for that, I apologize. Please allow me to explain myself,” he says, a furious blush creeping from the corners of his cheekbones to the tips of his ears.

            “It was customary for families to share the same bath…one at a time, of course…in order to preserve water…but seeing as one is willing to pay an extraordinary amount of currency for a _pastry_ in this century, I should have guessed that water has become a commodity as well. Now, normally, the male of the family would bathe first, but I always found that notion utterly ridiculous, especially in our situation, given the fact that this is your home, and I am merely your houseguest. My intention was to make certain that you had been afforded the luxury of the first use, and therefore the cleanest water.”

            Abbie stares at him for a long while, mouth gaping open and mind racing to try and process everything he’d just said. All Crane can do is stare back at her, the flummoxed expression not quite fallen from his features. She watches as he bites his lower lip, his fingers relentlessly fiddling with the hem of her t-shirt as he awaits her reply. After what feels like centuries, her heartbeat slows to a steadier pace, and Abbie lets out a gust of air she didn’t even realize she’d been holding in.

            “Well, in this century, we each get our own water when we shower,” she says slowly, and then punctuates it with, “ _alone_.”

            “Right then, dually noted,” he says, relaxing marginally. “Apologies, again, for the misunderstanding. I did not mean to insinuate that any inappropriate behavior should take place between the two of us.”

            “Good, because it shouldn’t,” she says, pursing her lips. She doesn’t know why she feels the need to reiterate such an obvious point.

            “Yes, of course,” Crane says slowly, his expression an odd combination of amusement and irritation. “Well…thank you, Lieutenant. This has been…enlightening.”

            And with that, he turns round and gently closes the door behind him. After a minute or two, Abbie hears the sound of running water, followed by a series of loud yelps, signaling that Crane had neglected to wait until the water had warmed up before jumping straight in. She’s dozed off on the living room couch by the time he’s finished his shower, but the click of the bathroom door startles her awake.

            “Everything okay, Crane?” she asks, peering around the edge of the couch.

            She hears a bit of scuffling and then Ichabod appears in the doorway, clad in nothing but a hand towel clutched over his lap, looking hopelessly awkward and out of place. Ichabod swallows thickly, glances down at the shielded region of his body, and mumbles, “Apologies, Lieutenant, but I don’t quite understand how to use your towels. Does it expand, or am I meant to use this small bit of cloth on my entire body? I do not believe that it will deliver in its intended purpose, as I am quite wet…and rather cold.”

            Ichabod shivers, the damp tendrils of his hair curled around his shoulders, water dripping down his battle-scar-embellished chest in rivulets. She tries not to look, or laugh… _damn, does she try…_ but _come on_. Abbie covers her face in her hands, her shoulders shaking with uncontrollable laughter. When she looks up, Crane is glaring at her, looking for all the world like an angry, drenched kitten. Sighing heavily, Abbie propels herself from the couch, carefully edges around Ichabod’s naked form, and grabs him a bigger towel from the linen closet, stifling another giggle fit.

            “That’s a _hand_ towel, Crane. It’s meant to dry your _hands_ after you’ve washed them. You’re gonna need a much bigger towel to dry off your…erm...the rest of you. You can use it to wrap around your waist so that you’re covered up when you go back into your…I mean, the _spare_ room. You know…to get changed…into clean clothing. You should probably…put on some clothes,” she says, arching her eyebrows for emphasis.

            “Right. Yes. Thank you, Lieutenant. Erm…but how exactly do I wrap it around—”

            “I am _so_ not going to show you how to do that, Crane.”

            “Right. Yes, of course. Apologies. I shall figure it out on my own. May, I, then?” he asks, holding his free hand out for the bigger towel. Abbie shifts her eyes to the ceiling when the little towel accidentally falls to the floor, and Crane slips back into the bathroom. Abbie wanders back toward the couch, gracelessly flops down onto the cushions, and scrubs her fingers through her hair, chuckling softly under her breath and wondering how she got herself into this mess.

            Five minutes later, the bathroom door opens and out steps Ichabod, a bundle of dirty clothing tucked under one arm, the other holding his poorly-wrapped towel in place. As he strolls across the living room to the corridor of the spare room, the towel unravels and falls to the floor. Twice. Abbie pretends not to notice.


	3. Laundry

            Abbie and Ichabod have an unspoken agreement to never, ever talk about the shower incident. And, to avoid future embarrassment (and because she’s running out of clothing that will actually fit him,) she decides to take him shopping over the weekend. The mall is a strange and fascinating new place for Ichabod, and it’s hard to remain frustrated with someone who won’t budge from the brilliantly colorful and shiny advertisement posters on all the shop windows when he’s staring at them with such awe and admiration. Although, Abbie admits, it’d be nice if he could just _shut up_ for a minute and let her think.

            “Lieutenant, the artistry and calligraphy of these…what did you call them…advertisements…is truly a wondrous sight! The work that must have gone into creating such color, such precision! Not to mention all of the wasted trees…they must have cut down an entire forest just to decorate these shop windows! Pity, that.”

            Abbie grasps him by the cuff of his jacket and tugs him along, weaving in between a sea of customers that continuously bump shoulders with an unaffected Ichabod. The storefronts rush past them in a blur of blended colors and bold, modern font, until Ichabod stops dead in his tracks and locks eyes with one in particular, his expression a caricature of shock and horror.

            “Lieutenant, what on _earth_ is that well-endowed woman doing in such revealing clothing? Isn’t there some kind of law against this level of immodesty?” Ichabod scoffs, clearly scandalized, and yet somehow, he’s unable to tear his gaze away from the gigantic Victoria Secret poster. Abbie rolls her eyes, dragging him away from the decorated pink and red shop windows that display a cheeky collection of lacey lingerie on busty, stick-figure mannequins.

            “People are a bit more open about that kind of stuff in this century. There’s a lot I have to catch you up on…but first, you need a change of clothes,” she explains, rolling her eyes and holding up her hand before Ichabod even has the chance to open his mouth.

            “Don’t _even_ try it, Crane. We’ve already had this discussion. If you’re going to play up the whole Oxford Professor cover story, you’re going to need to blend in. And that means looking the part.”

            Ichabod scowls, presses his lips into a tight line, and reluctantly follows.

            She takes him to JC Penney, Macy’s, Kohl’s, and Boscov’s, pointedly avoids the juniors’ shops (even though she’s almost certain that his lanky frame could fit their sizes…and even though the potential of seeing Crane in skinny jeans is hilariously tempting), in favor of a more sophisticated, collegiate look. After an agonizing two and a half hours of changing rooms and piles of unwanted clothing (he had rejected nearly everything she’d given him) they finally leave the mall with shopping bags full of new jeans and work trousers, a collection of button-up collared shirts in various colors, a couple of sweaters for the winter, pajama pants, t-shirts, boxers, socks, boots, and a brand new, navy blue pea coat on sale at half the price.

             It was all pretty affordable, considering her rank in the force, but that didn’t mean that Abbie wasn’t a pro at bargain shopping, hitting nearly every clearance rack she could get her hands on. Ichabod had even commended her on her finds (after gaping at the original prices and threatening to start another Revolutionary War.) On the drive home, she blasts the radio and sings along, feeling relatively good about still having the rest of her Saturday off from work to do as she pleases. Ichabod complains about the noise level, jamming his fingers in his ears like a petulant child, which only serves to make Abbie turn the volume louder, mouthing, _What? I can’t hear you! Too busy enjoying the music!,_ and laughing at his glowering expression. Ichabod settles for lightly banging his forehead against the passenger seat window.

            As they’re getting out of the car, Ichabod turns to Abbie and leans across the arm rests and cup holders until he’s invading her personal space. He tentatively places his hand on hers, and says, “Thank you for purchasing new belongings for me today. Though I might not always display it outwardly, I want you to know that I am grateful for all that you have done for me. I do not know how to repay you, as I am not currently in possession of any currency, or of the ability to obtain it via labor…but I do hope that I can find a way.”

            His expression is soft, his pale, pink lips curved into a small smile, framed by a mess of disheveled, dark brown facial hair. Abbie is struck with a sudden urge to reach up and smooth it over with her fingertips. Instead, she clears her throat, gently takes her hand out of his, and says, “Don’t worry about it, Crane. Just promise me you’ll actually _wear_ them.”

            Ichabod gives her a curt nod, and then jiggles the door handle, but it won’t budge.

            “Hang on,” Abbie sighs. “This car’s pretty old…sometimes the lock sticks.” Without even thinking about it, she reaches across his lap and clicks the little plastic button, just as she’d done a thousand times whenever she’d spent the night out with friends. She feels him flinch and go very still beneath her the moment her arm brushes against his chest. Before she can say anything, he’s bolting out of the car and then standing beside it, ramrod straight, with his arms awkwardly folded behind his back.

            “What? You’re gonna make _me_ carry all your stuff inside?” she laughs, unlocking the trunk with her keys. That seems to stir something in him, and suddenly he’s at her side, looping his arms through each of the shopping bag handles and tugging them out of the car as though they weigh nothing.

            “Huh. Impressive. Those new boots are pretty damn heavy,” she says, sifting through her key ring until she comes across the one to her apartment. She wonders for a moment if she should get a spare made for Crane, and then thinks better of it. It’s not like he’s staying for very long. Just for a little while, until he adjusts to life in this century. And then he’ll get his own place. With Katrina, his sort-of-dead-but-not-really wife. Probably.

            “You forget that I was in the army. War requires strength in a multitude of ways,” he explains, shifting the weight of the shopping bags from one arm to the other as they ascend the stairs to her apartment.

            “Fair enough,” she says, dropping her keys onto the kitchen table and shrugging off her coat. “Now, here comes the hard part. I’m going to need to teach you how to do your own laundry, and you’re going to need to listen very carefully so you don’t break anything, got it?”

            Ichabod gives Abbie a curt nod as he follows her into the communal laundry room at the lower level of the apartment complex, clutching a basket full of his brand new clothes. With a small, supercilious chuckle, Ichabod wonders how on earth scrubbing articles of cloth on a washboard and then hanging them out on a line to dry could’ve possibly gotten any more complicated than it had been back in his time.

            _Oh,_ he thinks as he surveys the massive room lined with a collection of black and white metal boxes. _Apparently everything is operated by machinery these days._

            Abbie takes the basket from him and sets it atop one of the washing machines, cranks the dial to _heavy load cycle_ and selects the button for cold water. Ichabod tries to keep up, memorizing her moves. She explains how the washer works, shows him how to pour in the proper amount of detergent (the very notion of liquid soap still baffles him), and helps him load his new clothes into the machine. Then she explains how to use the dryers, rolling her eyes when Crane argues that drying them out on a line would be much simpler.

            “Yeah, except we don’t have a linen line and your clothes would get bird shit all over them,” she says, arching her eyebrows. “Trust me, you’ll get the hang of this, and it’ll take much less time for your clothes to dry if you _use the dryer_.”

            “Hmm…looks like you’re going to have to split it into two cycles,” Abbie adds, sifting through his new wardrobe and piling a couple of pairs of jeans and work trousers into the washer after his sweaters and socks.

            “So, I’ve got some errands to run, but they shouldn’t take too long. I’ll be back before you know it…but you’re going to have to stay here while it finishes its cycle to make sure no one steals your stuff, okay?”

            “Yes, of course,” he says softly, his tone hesitant, disheartened.

            “You okay to do the second load on your own?” she asks, concerned.

            “I believe I have learned well from your example and should be able to complete the task without tremendous difficulty. I shall see you upon your return, Lieutenant.”

            Abbie smiles, her lips curving up at the corner in the way that they always do, whenever she’s found something he’s said or done particularly amusing, and makes for the door. Ichabod pushes the start button on the washing machine, carefully perches on a nearby plastic chair, and waits, his hands folded neatly in his lap.

            Abbie returns home about an hour later, her arms full of grocery bags that she quickly dumps onto the kitchen table, massaging the grooves in her wrists left by the weight of the plastic handles digging into her skin. At the sound of her arrival, Ichabod bolts into the room, clutching a bundle of pink and purple stained clothing. He looks utterly beside himself, his expression a combination of outrage and anxiety as he approaches her.

            “Lieutenant, look at what that cruel machine did to the new clothing!” he exclaims, holding out one of his formerly white button-up shirts as evidence. “I did everything just as you had explained. I turned the correct dials and pressed the right buttons and added the precise amount of magic cleaning liquid into the container, exactly as you had, but when I took them out of the machine, the lighter shades of clothing had turned different colors! That devil machine is to blame for ruining perfectly acceptable clothing!”

            “Crane,” Abbie says, her tone a mix of amusement and frustration.

            “I am _appalled_ by this century’s advances, Lieutenant,” he continues, “for they have ruined the kindness you had bestowed upon me, and now I am filled with guilt.”

            “Crane,” she says, softer this time. “It’s fine. Come on, I know just how to fix this.”

            After they put away the groceries, she makes him gather up all of the clothes that had turned different colors, and takes him down to the laundry room again. This time, she makes sure to explain how to properly separate whites and colors so that the dye from his red and purple button-up shirts won’t turn his white ones pink. She reiterates the fact that cold water lets colors remain much brighter than they would if he’d used hot water (which he admits may have been his first mistake.) And then she throws in a cup of Tide with bleach, and Ichabod watches with wonder and curiosity as the magic solution turns back time.

            She sits with him on the uncomfortable plastic chairs while he waits, the two of them sharing Mad Libs entries and Word Searches. When it’s finished its final cycle, Abbie quickly takes his clothes out of the dryer and rushes upstairs with the basket. Crane, intrigued by Abbie’s sudden enthusiasm, follows at her heels. She pushes open the door to his bedroom and proceeds to dump the pile of laundry out onto his bed.

            “Want to know what one of the best feelings in the world is?” she asks, a cheeky smile tugging at the corners of her lips. Ichabod arches his eyebrows, and watches as Abbie takes a few steps backward, makes a running leap toward his bed, and plunges into the rumpled pile of clean clothing, just as she would autumn leaves. She takes one of his new sweaters and wraps it around her shoulders, reveling in its fresh-from-the-dryer warmth and coziness.

            “Seriously. Best feeling. Come on, Crane,” she says, waving him over. Ichabod stills for a moment, uncertain as to what the proper course of action in this situation would be. But curiosity outweighs propriety, and he slowly, carefully lies down on his back, sinking into the mattress and sighing as the exposed patches of his skin make contact with the warm clothing. Still using his sweater as a scarf, Abbie rolls over onto her side, wraps her arms underneath her head, and watches him. Ichabod closes his eyes and burrows into the cozy pile of clothing, a pleasant smile spreading across his lips.

            Abbie makes a soft, low moaning sound at the back of her throat, and says, “It’s like hugging a freshly-brewed cup of coffee.” Ichabod opens his eyes, tilts his head to the side, and simply stares at her for a moment, his eyes tracing patterns across every feature of her face, burning them into his memory. _Yes_ , he thinks, _this is one of the best feelings in the world_.


	4. Internet

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would apologize for the ridiculous amount of Harry Potter references in this part, but I'm not even sorry.

            The horrible little alarm clock that sits on the edge of Abbie’s bedside table screeches and blares at 5AM, which only makes her want to snuggle down under her comforter even more, bury her head underneath her soft, plushy pillows, and nuzzle into the fuzzy sweater she’d fallen asleep in…the very same fuzzy sweater she’d bought for Ichabod…and had then stolen from him…oops. (Whatever…mint green looks much better on her anyway.)

            The five-minute snooze ticks by way too fast for Abbie’s liking. Groaning into her pillow, Abbie slowly turns over onto her back, props herself up on her elbows, and rolls out of bed, slamming the off button with an open palm. She puts on a bathrobe and trudges across the hardwood floor in a raggedy old pair of slippers, slowly cracking open her bedroom door. She’s just warming up to the idea of a hot shower followed by a steaming cup of coffee, when she spots Ichabod sitting on the living room couch, stirring a spoonful of honey into a comically large cup of peppermint tea with one hand, and…oh dear god…attempting to pry open the lid of her laptop with his other hand.

            “Crane,” she croaks, vocal cords not quite awake yet. “Why do you have my laptop?”

            At the sound of her voice, Ichabod’s head quirks up, and, upon seeing that she has finally woken up and come to join him, gives her the most ridiculous grin she’s ever seen him wear. It almost lets him off the hook… _almost_.

            “Good morning, Lieutenant,” he says, far too cheery for this early in the morning. “I do hope you had a good night’s rest. I myself could not sleep, so I decided to make a nice cup of tea and reflect upon this gorgeous September morning.” Crane tilts his head toward the open window, where a stream of sunlight pours through the dusty, fingerprinted glass, casting fiery gemstones of light onto the hardwood floor as the curtains waltz with the wind.

             So that’s where the draft is coming from.

            Crane, paying no mind to Abbie’s growing frustration, removes the tiny spoon from his teacup and proceeds to lick it clean.

            "I am fortunate that your kitchen faucets were not too difficult to learn how to use, and I was able to procure hot water directly from the tap. I admit that I may have developed an addictive fondness for herbal infusions, as I am now on my fifth helping of the same peppermint and tarragon blend. I should very much like to thank the Tazo family for their wonderful contribution to society, and compliment them on their brilliantly varied tea garden. Is their teashop nearby? Could we visit?”

            Abbie closes her eyes, rubs at the sore spots on her temples where she harbors an ever-present migraine, and mumbles, “Not exactly…Tazo’s a company, not a family…but I mean, Starbucks _bought_ Tazo a couple years back, so I guess we could always go there…but that still doesn’t answer my–”

            “I sifted through a few of the books you had left lying about your living room,” Crane chirps, purposefully avoiding Abbie’s question. “I hope you don’t mind, only I rather enjoyed the one about the young boy who discovers that he possesses magical abilities. Very endearing, as I’m sure you know. Young Harold Potter’s troublesome life certainly throws mine into perspective. Is it a work of fiction, or is this a biography?” Crane asks, holding up Abbie’s battered and dog-eared copy of _Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone._ “Is there _really_ a hidden school for magic in Scotland? If so, I should very much like to visit someday.”

            Abbie sighs heavily and laughs, taking pity on Crane.

            “Sadly, no,” she says, and Ichabod’s eager smile disappears. “The whole series is fictional. Trust me, I was disappointed when I found out, too. By the time it was published, eleven had already come and gone for me…I always told myself that my letter had gotten lost in the mail,” she laughs, rolling her eyes at the memory of her naïve, stupidly optimistic younger self.

            “There is an entire series? It’s not just the one book?” Ichabod asks, and Abbie nearly melts into a puddle of sugar and saccharine at the sight of his blissfully hopeful smile.

            “Yeah, there’re seven books in total. I’ve got them all in hardcover on a bookshelf in my room…you can borrow them if you want. Hell, after we kick the apocalypse in the ass, I’ll even take you to the theme park in Florida, get you a tin of Bertie Botts Every Flavour Beans and a Butterbeer…maybe even make a pit-stop in Disney World if we’ve got time. But I’m getting off track, here…how about you tell me what you were doing with my—”

            “I did not understand most of what you just said, Lieutenant, but I _did_ wonder if there was, perhaps, a sequel to—”

            “Crane!” Abbie sends him a warning glare.

            “Which _brings me_ to your question, Lieutenant,” Crane practically lilts, all too aware of his seemingly effortless ability to irritate the shit out of her. Abbie stares daggers, which only spurs Ichabod on, his lips curving into a devilish smirk in response.

            “After I had finished _The Sorcerer’s Stone_ , I attempted to invest in some of the other novels that you have, but I quickly grew bored of them. Then, I discovered this rather large, metal book sitting upon your kitchen table. I thought it odd to find a book lacking description on the cover, save for a small, white image of an apple that appears to have a bite taken out of it…is this, perhaps, a cookbook of some sort, entirely dedicated to apple-dominant delicacies?” he asks, smoothing his fingertips across the little plastic logo. Abbie can’t help but laugh, her sour mood evaporating at the sight of Crane’s curious, yet utterly bewildered, expression as he looks to her for instruction.

            Sighing heavily, Abbie treads across the living room and nestles into the nook in between Crane and the armrest. It’s inevitable, really. Ichabod is going to have to discover the synchronous wonders and horrors of the Internet eventually…and if anyone is going to teach him how it’s done, it might as well be Abbie.

            “Okay, Crane. I’m feeling charitable this morning, so I’m gonna teach you how to use a computer…and then the Internet.”

            Crane gives her a look that’s both intrigued and frightened at once, and well…that about sums up the Internet, really.

            “First lesson…open the lid,” she says, holding back a smile as she waits to see what he’ll do. She realizes she’s playing with fire here, letting him handle her one-thousand-and-something-dollar laptop…but Crane’s a pretty smart guy, so she’s giving him the benefit of the doubt. Ichabod’s lips twist into a frown as he stares down at the rectangular contraption. Slowly, carefully, as though he were handling a baby bird, Crane lifts the lid, cradling the metal underside in the palm of his hand…and then proceeds to turn it on its side.

            “Lieutenant, I don’t think I quite understand. There are only two pages to this book…one crafted of a shiny, black material, the other containing buttons with various lettering and symbols. How am I meant to read this book if there are no words?”

            Abbie rolls her eyes, laughing as she snatches the laptop from Crane’s hands, settles it onto her lap the right way up, and presses the power button. Ichabod jumps about a foot out of his seat at the start-up sound, blinking rapidly as the screen fires up and the little gray apple appears in the center.

            “No, come on, don’t give me the spinning wheel of death,” Abbie grumbles. Ichabod settles back onto the couch cushion, his eyebrows raised in confusion at Abbie’s comment. After a few seconds, her background comes into a view, and Abbie sighs. It’s an old photograph of her and Corbin on the day of her promotion, one of the few captured memories she has of him. He looks like a proud father, his smile prominent in his bright, blue eyes. Ichabod makes a soft noise in the back of his throat, staring at the screen with fondness and sympathy.

            Abbie clears her throat, shaking the sadness off of her shoulders, and gingerly deposits the computer into Ichabod’s lap. She leans over Ichabod’s shoulder, places her hand on top of his, and delicately moves his pointer finger to trace circles on the track-pad. Visibly startled by both the contact and the little moving arrow, Ichabod leans in closer, pressing his fingertips to the screen and inquiring as to how it works.

            “I don’t actually know, to be honest. Something to do with LCD lights and plasma, I think,” she says, leaning back and removing her hand from his to let him get used to the track-pad on his own. She shows him the basic settings, explains what apps, folders, and documents are, and lets him play around with different tracks in iTunes for a little bit to test out the sound system. To no one’s surprise, it turns out that Ichabod hates dub-step and American pop, but is rather fond of Sinatra’s upbeat swing ballads and Beethoven’s string quartets. Meaning to switch back from Finder to iTunes, Ichabod accidentally clicks on Google Chrome, his eyes mimicking the little beach ball as it bounces in the dock.

            “Lieutenant, I’ve accidentally opened up another program. Is this that Internet thing you were talking about before? What do I do?” he asks, eyes wide as the new tab automatically opens to a Google search box.

            “Go on,” Abbie says, nudging him in the ribcage. “Play around a little bit.”

            Abbie watches with amused interest as Ichabod expands his research methods beyond the dusty old books in their archive, marveling at the speed at which a never-ending supply of knowledge is available to him with only a few key phrases and the click of a button. It amazes Abbie just how much the concepts of entertainment and curiosity haven’t changed very much since Ichabod’s time, especially when he giggles and tilts the screen toward Abbie whenever he finds a particularly adorable photograph of a kitten. Noting the time, Abbie leaves the comfort of the couch and begrudgingly goes about her morning routine, starting up the espresso machine while she waits for her shower to hit hotter-than-the-sun proportions.

            After an unfortunate (and mildly horrifying) pornographic ad experience when Ichabod accidentally types in the wrong address, he’d mostly just taken to Wikipedia to (loudly and irritatingly) scoff and correct various historical inaccuracies while he waited for Abbie to return. An hour later, clad in her police uniform, Abbie settles back onto the couch, stealing the computer from Ichabod’s lap as he’s typing mid-sentence. He pouts for a moment before he realizes what she’s doing, and then a curious grin spreads across his face. Abbie plugs in the Pottermore URL, clicks through her account, and pulls up the Sorting Hat quiz.

            “Humor me,” she says with a wry smirk. “I’m curious.”

            Ichabod takes to the quiz with great enthusiasm, pausing only to ask Abbie questions concerning diction and phrasing. In the end, he gets sorted into Ravenclaw. Go figure. Abbie’s eyes shift to the scarlet-and-gold-striped scarf with the embroidered lion, wrapped around one of the prongs of the coatrack, and smiles. And then, spotting the glowing green numbers on the microwave clock in the kitchen, Abbie sighs heavily and starts to get up, condemning her workaholic lifestyle.

            “Come on, Crane,” she says. “Back to reality. We’ve got work to do.”

            Ichabod closes the lid of the laptop and gently places it on the coffee table, gathering his jacket and boots from the floor where he’d left them, chuckling to himself as he does so.

            “What’s so funny?” she asks, grabbing her keys from the kitchen table.

            “Don’t you find it odd how much our lives have come to resemble a work of fiction? Think on it: a world that harbors harsh realities and bland, bleak existences, while concurrently veiling the truth about fairytales and folklore…a place where logic and lore collide, where dark magic and monsters and demons thrive in secret. If we ignore the horror, the pain, and the sadness the impending apocalypse will undoubtedly bring us, that impossible fact alone is quite astonishingly beautiful, in a macabre sort of way, because…when you think about it, you and I are destined to become the very heroes we admire,” he says, a soft, thoughtful smile tugging at the corners of his lips.

            He’s standing at the kitchen door beside her, towering over her like a giant, his brilliant blue eyes so full of honest, raw wonder and intensity that it’s almost too much for Abbie to handle. She’s frozen to the door handle, unable to move, because if she does, she’s afraid she’ll start crying, that every emotion she’s bottled up inside of her chest since the night she saw the demon in the woods will unravel and let loose in a flurry of sorrow and rage. Crane is her anchor, he’s the one who simultaneously keeps her sane and contributes to her madness. He must see it in her eyes, must know that he’s touched a nerve, because his gaze quickly shifts and suddenly he’s glancing down at her police uniform, arching an eyebrow and fixing her with a scrutinizing frown.

            “Lieutenant…have you commandeered my new sweater?” he asks.

            Abbie says nothing, averting her eyes as she hides an impudent little smirk.

            “The one you were wearing this morning,” he presses. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten about it. You took it from my laundry pile last night and slept in it. I want it back.”

            Abbie smiles so wide it nearly breaks her jaw, stifling a giggle as she pokes him in the chest and retorts, “No way. I bought it, so I’m keeping it.”

            “Well, that is true enough, but didn’t you originally intend for me to wear it? Isn’t that why it was located in the men’s section of that department store?”

            Abbie scoffs, feigning offense, and says, “Don’t give me any of that gendered bullshit, I’ll wear a man’s sweater if I want to…and I’ll look damn good doing it.”

            “Indeed you will, Lieutenant. It’s a very flattering color on you,” he says, unable to hide his brazen smile. His mind wanders back to this morning, recalling the memory of Abbie in his intended clothes with perfect accuracy, down to the very last detail, and adds, “I’ve changed my mind. You should keep it. After all, it looks much nicer on you.”

            “Thank you, Crane,” Abbie says, slightly taken aback by the compliment.

            “Though I would like to borrow it from time to time.”

            “I’ll think about it.”

            “Only after you’ve washed it, of course. I don’t want _Abbie scent_ all over me,” he amends, flashing her a cheeky grin and miming disgust.

            Abbie rolls her eyes and laughs, properly unrestrained and honest for the first time in days. Maybe work won’t be so bad, now that she’s got Crane.


	5. Dinner

            Nearly a week after the (thankfully, closed) John Doe/Biblical Plague case and the mountain of paperwork that had followed, Abbie and Ichabod burst through the front door of her apartment, clutching their sides and laughing so hard that Abbie thinks she might faint. For the fourth time in five days, they’d eaten at Corbin’s favorite diner, blowing off a bit of steam from their week of (literal) hell, with all manner of fried and greasy, artery-choking entrées and diabetic-coma-inducing desserts. Ichabod opens the refrigerator door and adds the remainder of his chicken alfredo and molten chocolate lava cake to their steadily growing collection of styrofoam boxes and Chinese takeaway containers, while he finishes telling Abbie the rest of his story about how he and his siblings used to prank their parents.

            “Seriously, though? No one noticed?” Abbie giggles, dropping her keys onto the kitchen table and shrugging out of her jacket.

            “No, not even my mother!” Ichabod exclaims, gesticulating wildly. “One would assume that a woman would _notice_ if her own husband had suddenly developed a bald spot atop his head overnight. Alas, my mother was never very astute when it came to matters of my father’s aesthetic qualities, particularly as he aged…and who could blame her, really?”

            A second of silence passes wherein Crane locks eyes with Abbie and throws her a cheeky little smirk, almost as if to say, _I’m the reason you’re smiling right now, so I’m going to be a little bit smug about it,_ and then the two of them are bursting out laughing again, Abbie clinging onto the arm of Ichabod’s navy blue pea coat for support.

            “That,” Abbie says, wiping a stray tear from her eye, “is fantastic. Horrible…but hilarious, all the same. I can’t believe you actually got away with partially shaving your dad’s head in the middle of the night. Sounds like regal life wasn’t _all_ bad…you know, apart from the super-constricting fancy clothes and the fox hunting.”

            “Those few moments of puerile humor _did_ make it more bearable at times, yes,” Crane responds quietly, hands folded neatly behind his back.

            Abbie’s laughter subsides into a contented sigh as she opens the refrigerator door, grimacing the minute she catches sight of the mess of leftover containers piling up on her (usually) organized shelves.

            “We go out _way_ too much,” she says, shifting some of the boxes around. “One of these days, I’m gonna re-fry all of these leftovers…maybe we’ll even take some of them in for lunch tomorrow at the station. What do you think?”

            “ _Or_ we could cook some of it up right now,” Ichabod suggests with a nonchalant shrug.

            “Are you serious?” Abbie laughs. “You’re like a bottomless pit, Crane, I swear. I, on the other hand, am absolutely stuffed to the gills. I definitely don’t need to eat any more food tonight…you know what I _do_ need, though? A nice, hot, _long_ shower…so, let me go and do that, and then maybe I’ll fry up some leftovers for you. Though, to be honest, I have no idea where you’re going to put it all, skinny guy like you.”

            “There is no need to trouble yourself, Miss Mills. I was merely jesting,” he says, offering her a small, apologetic smile. Abbie isn’t quite certain what to do with that.

            “You sure?” she asks, eyebrows arched in concern. Ichabod gives her a curt nod.

            “In that case, I’m going straight to sleep after my shower. Apartment’s all locked up, so the only thing I need you to do is get the lights on your way to bed…think you can handle that this time?” Abbie teases.

            “I am now _painfully_ familiar with the function of a light switch and its correlation with electricity usage and cost, thank you,” he retorts, but his tone is more playful than offended.

            “All right, then,” she laughs. “Night, Crane…see you in the morning.”

            Abbie gives him a little wave as she strolls across the living room and steps into the bathroom, shucking off her boots and standing them up outside of her bedroom door.

            “Goodnight, Miss Mills,” he calls after her, almost too softly for her to hear, and Abbie feels her the corners of her lips twitch up into a small smile.

            Abbie stands in front of the bathroom mirror, fingertips pushing her skin in all directions as she surveys the tired lines of her face, the bruised blue and violet veins collecting underneath her eyes from too many sleepless nights. She tilts her head to the side, stretching the muscles of her neck and massaging an ever-present knot near her shoulder blade. As always, Abbie laments the fact that this apartment didn’t come with a proper bathtub. What she wouldn’t give for a steaming, lavender and eucalyptus spearmint soak right now…maybe even a bit of candlelight, a soft string quartet piece playing at a lull in the background, and a good book.

            She thinks that Ichabod would probably have preferred a bathtub to a shower, being more accustomed to that style of personal hygiene…next time she moves, she’ll have to make sure that her apartment comes with a bathtub, and then they’ll both be able to…wait, no. Her mind did _not_ just go there. First of all, she is absolutely _not_ going to think about Ichabod in the bath, however simultaneously hilarious and disturbing and ~~maybe even a little bit hot~~ that might be. Second…by the time Abbie is ready to move out of this apartment, Ichabod will probably have already found a place of his own…with his wife. Abbie keeps forgetting that Ichabod is married. _Was_ married. To a witch. Who is dead. Possibly.

            Abbie still isn’t quite sure.

            Shaking her head to banish all of her ridiculous, rambling thoughts, Abbie strips out of her police uniform, leaving it in a rumpled pile on the bathroom floor, and twists the knobs of the shower, waiting for the water to hit the perfect, scalding hot temperature before stepping inside. Abbie stands under the spiraling jets of water for a good ten minutes, all the tension unwinding from her shoulders as she tries to occupy her mind with anything but thoughts of the impending apocalypse, or her inevitable role in all of this mess. Most especially, she resolutely _does not_ think about Ichabod coming to join her in the shower, ~~or the fact that she might actually like it if he did~~. Just as she’s finally starting to relax, Abbie hears a loud, high-pitched screeching sound emanating from somewhere within her apartment.

            Sighing loudly and wondering what fresh hell is preventing her from enjoying the only free time she’s gotten all day, Abbie shuts off the water, hastily throws on a bathrobe and slippers, and marches out into the living room. Ichabod stumbles out of her kitchen moments later, coughing like mad, a dark gray cloud of smoke clinging to his clothes.  
            “I seem to have,” he starts, but is cut off by a string of billowing coughs. “I seem to have set your kitchen aflame, and vexed the little plastic box on the ceiling in the process.”

            Abbie’s eyes grow wide with anger and fear as she rushes past him, using the collar of her bathrobe to shield her face from the smoke. Choking and sputtering, she makes her way over to the stove, and nearly wretches as she spots the charred bits of chicken and fettuccine alfredo burning to a crisp in the frying pan, the dial cranked all the way to high heat. Immediately switching it off, Abbie wraps a burned and blackened dish towel around the handle of her frying pan, runs it over to the sink, and soaks it under a steady flow of cold water, the steaming vapor sizzling and swirling in an upward spiral toward the ceiling.

            Ichabod stands in a corner of the kitchen, looking thoroughly ashamed, his hands tucked behind his back, eyes recording every move Abbie makes to ensure that the next time this sort of thing happens, he’ll know exactly how to handle it. Abbie doesn’t pay him any attention, but is at least thankful for the fact that he’s staying out of her way and letting her fix the mess he’d made. Now, to deal with the smoke alarm. In all the time that Abbie had lived here, she’d never once had to turn this thing off, so she’s not entirely certain how it’s done. She tries, in vain, to jump up and reach it from where she’s standing, but she’s nowhere close to its height. Even dragging a chair over and propping it up underneath the horrible little beeping box does nothing for her. In an instant, Ichabod is by her side, one of her chairs tucked under his arm. He sets it down right next to hers, climbs up onto it, and asks Abbie what he’s supposed to do.

            “The key here is to try and find the little button that shuts it off,” Abbie practically shouts. Still confused, but determined to right his mistake, Crane nods, reaching up and poking at the smoke alarm, searching for the magical button that will end this miserable noise.

            “You have to twist it and pull the top off, I think,” Abbie offers, steadying Crane’s shoulders as he sways backward, dizzy from the smoke. Ichabod does as he’s told and eventually the box pops open, revealing a complicated set of wiring and colorful buttons. Going for broke, Crane presses the little red button in the middle and the beeping finally ceases, leaving a deafening, albeit peaceful, silence in its wake. Ichabod twists the box back into place and stumbles forward, reaching out to steady himself and accidentally grabbing onto Abbie’s waist in the process.

            Abbie gasps in surprise at the sudden contact, the top of her head brushing against the scruffy underside of his chin as she fixes him with an incredulous stare. She's suddenly uncomfortably aware of how close they are, the nerves underneath the surface of her skin lighting up like a livewire at the sensation of his torso pressed up against her chest. She can feel his fingertips gently digging into her hipbones, watches as his eyes grow comically wide, not-so-subtly shifting from her shocked expression to the curve of her breasts underneath the thin fabric of her unraveling bathrobe. Crane makes a gruff, disgruntled sound at the back of his throat, seemingly regaining his senses as his arms quickly fall back to his sides, and steps down from his chair in one swift, fluid motion. Ever the gentleman, Ichabod promptly turns round and offers his hand to Abbie. Hesitant, but determined not to stir any more conflict, Abbie folds her fingertips across Crane’s open palm, and lands on the kitchen floor with a soft _thump_ as her slippers make contact with the linoleum tiling.

            “So,” Abbie starts, in an attempt to cut through the suffocating cloud of unresolved sexual tension. “You want to tell me what happened here?”

            “I might have attempted to reheat the food we had brought home from the diner,” he admits, cheekbones flushing an impossible shade of red as he pointedly avoids looking anywhere but directly at her. “I didn’t want to trouble you. I feel indebted to you enough as it is, for allowing me to share your home and for your generous hospitality, continually purchasing food and clothing for me, among other countless amenities. I must admit that a regal upbringing did not allow for me to learn the essentials of fine cookery, and I foolishly assumed that I could quickly acclimate myself to your century’s advancements in the practice. It was only when I was drafted into the war that I learned how to cook my own meals. Even then, we primarily roasted meat and vegetables over an open flame…which may have been where I went wrong.”

            Abbie arches her eyebrows, crosses her arms over her chest, and listens, lips pursed. The words come tumbling out of Crane’s mouth in chagrined shambles.

            “You see, I placed the leftover food in one of your heating pans and turned the temperature dial to what _I had thought_ was a proper setting on your…what did you call it, a stovetop? I assumed it was either broken or that the internal firewood simply wasn’t catching properly, given the absence of a flame. In one of your drawers, I found a set of matches that I had, on several occasions, observed your elderly neighbor using when lighting his tobacco pipe, and so I proceeded to strike a match, and placed it underneath the coil. Before I knew it, the entire stovetop had caught fire and my intended meal had started to burn. I attempted to fan away the excess flames and smoke using a dishtowel, and that is when that confounded little box affixed to your ceiling began screeching at me. I assume, given your response, that what I had done was not the proper course of action?”

            Ichabod chances a glance at her, shame coloring every inch of his skin as he works his magic with one of the most heartbreaking expressions Abbie has ever seen. Damn Crane and his stupid handsome face. He's a pro at pulling the classic puppydog eyes routine…and worst of all, the bastard probably isn’t even doing it on purpose. Abbie sighs, all of her anger and frustration dissolving into a puddle of pity as she reminds herself that he’s still pretty lost in this century, and doesn’t know any better.

            “Okay,” she breathes, tugging on the drawstrings of her bathrobe and wrapping the plushy fabric tighter around her waist. “I think it’s time you learned how to cook for yourself. Properly, this time. It’ll be better for the both of us in the long run. You’ll learn an important life lesson, and I’ll probably end up saving a shit ton of money by not shelling out for takeaway and diner food every night…or for kitchen repairs, whenever you feel like getting creative and taking things into your own hands. First lesson of the night: that’s not how an electric stove works. In this case, fire means bad.”

            Ichabod nods fervently, relaxing considerably as he moves the chairs back in place.

            “We’ll start tomorrow night, after work. Right now, I am exhausted from playing firewoman and am very much in need of sleep. I’ll clean this mess up in the morning,” Abbie says, yawning as if on cue as she takes her leave.

            “Oh, and Crane?” she adds, curling her fingers around the doorframe and swinging backward to poke her head in the kitchen.

            “Yes, Lieutenant?” he asks, hopeful and hesitant.

            “Try not to set anything else on fire, okay?”

            She’d be lying if she said she wasn’t immensely satisfied by the furious pink that colors his cheeks, or the look of pure mortification that paints his features as she leaves him standing there in the center of the dark, smoky kitchen.

            Over the next couple of weeks, Abbie teaches Ichabod the basics of cooking, gives him a modest weekly allowance, and takes him grocery shopping a couple of times so that he can get into the pattern of eventually doing it on his own. Through careful instruction, she shows him how the stovetop and the oven work, how to do the washing up and properly load the dishwasher. As expected, he adamantly refuses to use the microwave, and is incredibly distrusting of the blender. After a few mistakes and one embarrassing visit from the fire department for a minor incident involving bacon and pancakes, Ichabod eventually gets the hang of cooking, and ends up becoming a pretty decent chef. She starts him off with smaller, simpler dishes…grilled cheese, cilantro-lime rice and beans, chicken and tomato soup, and various kinds of pasta with pre-made cheese sauces. It’s nice, actually, eating home-cooked meals for once, and it seems that Ichabod is intent on making up for his blunders, so he does most of the cooking whenever they come home from a long day in the archives.

            Most of the cases they come across involve some sort of supernatural madness, so normally, Crane comes into work with her. This night, however, was just a normal, run-of-the-mill robbery at a downtown bank, so Ichabod had stayed at the apartment while Abbie got called in for the case. A couple of hours and a perpetrator chase-down worthy of a buddy cop film later, Abbie trudges up the stairs to her apartment, tired and sore in all the worst places, and in desperate need of sleep. Instead, as she opens the door, she’s greeted with the most delicious, inviting scents she’s ever smelled. The lights of her kitchen are dimmed to a soft glow, the table set with perfect precision, every plate and utensil aligned like a showcase for _Food and Wine_.

            Ichabod stands by the open oven, clad in a little blue apron and oversized oven mitts. A collection of decorated dishes lines the kitchen counters, fresh steam rising from the surface of the plates. Her laptop is tucked into a corner of the kitchen counter, a YouTube how-to video paused on the image of a stout man rolling crêpe batter onto a hot turntable and adding drizzles of chocolate syrup. Abbie steps further into the room, hungrily inhaling the inviting scents, eyes wide and fixed on Crane. His hair is a disheveled mess, pulled back into a ponytail and dappled with streaks of flour. When he sees that she’s come home, his lips spread into the most adorable, delighted smile. He sets the scalding tray down onto the counter, the contents of which look amazing and have Abbie’s mouth watering at the sight alone.

            “Crane,” she says, awestruck. “What did you… _how_ did you…why?”

            Ichabod’s cheerful smile twists into a cheeky smirk as he observes Abbie’s reaction, pleased to have been the one to render her speechless.

            “I’ll answer those questions in the order opposite of how you posed them, shall I? Over the past couple of weeks, you have taught me more than I could ever hope to learn on the subject of cookery, and I came to the conclusion that the proper form of reciprocation would be to take that knowledge one step further, and utilize two different skillsets, both of which I garnered from your teachings, to prepare a proper, full-course meal to show my gratitude. I used the internet to search for recipes I thought you might like, and came across this _YouTube_ site that delivered an endless supply of food preparation tutorials.”

            “Next, I took the liberty while you were out solving that mundane thievery case to make a trip to the supermarket, and I must admit that without your supervision, I may have gotten a bit carried away with my selections. However, I hope that you will forgive me when you taste what I have made for the both of us tonight. The first course is a roasted chicken breast, garnished with fresh, chopped garlic cloves and lemon juice, atop a bed of fettuccine with homemade alfredo sauce, followed by a spinach salad seasoned with feta cheeses, dried cranberries, fresh blueberries, raspberries, and green apples, and diced almonds and walnuts. Lastly, and, coincidentally, the meal I am most looking forward to, I have prepared a collection of homemade crêpes…mozzarella cheese with sunflower pesto, apples soaked in honey and cinnamon with brie cheese and cranberry chutney, and diced strawberries drizzled with a generous helping of this exquisite chocolate and hazelnut delicacy I found called Nutella.”

            Ichabod waits with a hopeful expression, still clad in his ridiculously oversized oven mitts, and all Abbie can do is stare at him, mouth open wide as a million different emotions and senses war with each other for dominance.

            “Crane, this is…amazing,” she says finally, chuckling softly and sighing with unapologetic desire as a wave of chocolate, hazelnut, and strawberries wrapped in savory dough breezes past her.

            “Thank you, Lieutenant. It’s the least I could do,” he says, rushing over to where she stands to pull out a chair for her.

            “Chivalry _and_ a delicious, home-cooked meal? You’re spoiling me, Crane,” she laughs, shrugging out of her jacket and taking the proffered seat.

            “Only a little,” he quips, whisking a bottle of red wine out of its bucket of ice, uncorking it with a simple flick of his wrist, and pouring Abbie a full glass. Ichabod sets the courses on the table, and the two of them tuck in, clinking glasses filled to the brim with wine in cheers. It’s incredible, to say the least, a fact that Abbie is a little ashamed to admit surprises her. With each new bite, Abbie makes a soft little moaning sound at the back of her throat, and Ichabod pretends he isn’t shamelessly pleased ~~and perhaps a fair bit aroused~~ by her reaction to his cooking.

            The two of them spend the rest of the meal talking about the past…his past, mostly…about happier, better times…about his childhood, about his time spent in Oxford as a professor, before he’d been drafted into the war. After a couple of glasses of wine, Abbie starts to open up a little, too, sharing a few cherished memories about the days before her parents’ marriage had started to fall apart. When they’ve completely obliterated the dish of crêpes, both of them fit to bursting, they collapse into a giggling mess on Abbie’s living room couch. Neither of them end up going to bed until about 3AM, once they’ve polished off the entire bottle of red wine, and are too tired to keep their eyes open any longer.

            Stumbling over the arm of the couch and laughing like it’s the funniest thing in the world, Ichabod leads Abbie to the threshold of her bedroom, forgetting, for a moment, which one of them is supposed to be holding the other upright. Crane stares down at her, expectant...waiting for a cue, or perhaps for her dismissal.

            “Thank you, Crane,” Abbie says, smiling and swaying a little. “I had a wonderful time tonight, and I… _whoah_ , hang on, I’m making this sound like it’s the end of a date,” Abbie giggles, sliding down the wall just a bit.

            Ichabod quirks an eyebrow, clearly confused, and says, “Pardon my ignorance, but what is exactly is a date?"

            “Oh, right...um...it's like, when two people like each other and they go out together," she says, rather lamely.

            “Oh. Well, I am quite fond of you, Miss Mills, and from what I gather, you don't seem to mind my company...and sometimes we do _go out_ , as you put it...how, then, is this not a date?"

            “Sorry, um...I meant two people who like each other in the _romantic_ sense," she explains, and Ichabod's expression alters considerably.

            “Oh...are you referring to the concept of courting? I did not realize that the colloquialism had changed. In that case...yes, I suppose this is different," he says softly.

            “Although, to be fair, this is a thousand times better than any date I've ever been on…and, if it’s any consolation, if this _were_ a date, I would _definitely_ take you back home with me,” Abbie trails off, and then, realizing what she’s just implied, hastily adds, “But you’re married, and we already live together anyway, and this totally isn’t a date, so…um…I’m getting way off track, here…you shouldn’t have let me have wine. Anyway, what I wanted to say, if the words would stop falling out of my brain, is that, um…I haven’t had this much fun in a really long time, and I really needed that, so…thank you. Good night, Crane.”

            Feeling brazen, a false confidence borrowed from too many glasses of wine surging through her veins, Abbie leans forward, stretching up onto the balls of her feet, and places a soft, chaste kiss on Crane’s cheek. Before he even has the chance to respond, Abbie slips behind the door of her bedroom without another word. Ichabod stands outside of Abbie's bedroom door for quite some time, flummoxed and frozen to the spot, the place where Abbie’s lips had met his skin burning around a furious blush. Ichabod doesn't sleep very well that night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The crêpe entrées that Ichabod made were recipes borrowed from real dishes served at _The Skinny Pancake_ in Vermont. They're kind of amazing.


	6. Photographs

            Abbie wakes to find that an ice pick has been shoved into her temple…or so it feels like. She’s running on little more than two hours of sleep, and the massive wine hangover from the night before isn’t helping. Rolling over onto her stomach and squinting up at her alarm clock through half-lidded eyes and a mess of dark brown hair, Abbie feels a jolt of panic twist its way through her chest. She’d slept through her morning alarm. _Again_. Irving is going to kill her…especially when he finds out _why_. It’ll be pretty hard to hide, after all…she’s got _late night drinking_ written all over her, and she feels like absolute death.

            Abbie rips off the covers, hissing as a frigid gust of air washes over her exposed skin, and vaults out of bed, swaying a bit at the sudden head rush. She makes record timing with a three-minute shower, pulls her towel-dried hair into a taut bun, and slips into her uniform as quickly as she can manage with all of its complicated buttons, badges, and embellishments. At the very least, she thinks with a bitter fondness, years of working in the force and having to leave her home at a moment’s notice to take on a call have pushed her into a habitual morning routine. Case in point: Abbie knows how to rush.

            She’s just heading out of her bedroom when she spots Ichabod’s hunched figure perched along the edge of the couch, his eyebrows furrowed in concentration as he pokes at the touchscreen of Abbie’s new phone.

            “Whoah, whoah, whoah, _Crane_ ,” she says, a little harsher than she means to. “What did I tell you about touching stuff that isn’t yours?”

            Ichabod twitches and nearly drops the phone, locking eyes with Abbie for a brief moment before immediately looking away, a faint pink blush creeping across the tips of his ears. In one swift, graceful motion, he’s standing before her with ramrod-straight posture, clutching the phone in his palm and fidgeting as he casts his eyes downward.

            “Lieutenant,” he says, a little breathless. “I apologize for the intrusion into your personal affairs. I was merely waiting for you to be finished with your morning routine, and I must admit that I grew rather bored, and, well…curious. I thought it wise to continue broadening my knowledge of the modern world by acquainting myself with your…what is it you call this contraption, a _smartphone_? I must confess that I still understand very little of its inner workings, and much less of its intended purpose.”

            “Inner wo—” Abbie pauses, shaking her head and reminding herself to _breathe_. She squeezes her eyes shut and pinches the bridge of her nose, hoping to stave off the migraine that’s brewing just under the surface of her pulsating hangover headache. Even the thought of a hot, fresh-brewed cup of coffee is making her sick.

            “Crane,” she continues, as calmly as she can manage, “tell me you didn’t try to break open my phone.”

            “No, of course not! Or at least, I was _unsuccessful_ in doing so. In spite of its fragile, polished glass surface, (speaking of which, were those marks and scratches there before? I cannot, for the life of me, remember,) the little rectangular machine appears to be rather air-tight, so I suppose your precious _smartphone_ holds up quite well in that category,” he says, and that supercilious, self-satisfied little smirk is enough to make Abbie’s blood boil.

            “Okay, that’s it,” she says, marching over to the couch and snatching the phone out of Crane’s hands. “Curiosity aside, I need you to _not_ mess with my stuff. Like it isn’t enough that you live under my roof completely rent-free, eat my food, and deplete my paychecks, but now you can’t even follow a simple request?”

            Ichabod’s expression crumbles instantly as he splutters out a hasty apology, but Abbie cuts him off with a sharp gesture of her hand.

            “Don’t _even_. Just…go downstairs and wait for me by the car. I need to make sure you didn’t break anything.”

            Ichabod opens his mouth to attempt another apology, catches a warning glare from Abbie, and then promptly closes it, shoulders slumped in defeat as he withdraws from the room. Sparing no time for guilt or sympathy, Abbie sighs and flops down onto one of the couch cushions, scrubbing off the streaks of oily fingerprints from the touchscreen with the hem of her shirt and sliding the little bar to unlock her phone. Abbie breathes a sigh of relief when she realizes that the only thing Crane had managed to do (besides embed a few irreparable scratches into the touchscreen, accidentally switch around the order of her app folders, and then open all of her apps in the process) is take a few accidental selfies with the built-in camera.

            Abbie can’t help but laugh as she scrolls through the seemingly endless stream of photographs featuring Ichabod’s scruffy, bearded face in all of the classic first-time-camera-user poses: blurry shots of the underside of his nose and lips, paired alongside slightly clearer portraits of a very confused and distressed Crane as he unintentionally poses from all sorts of awkward and unflattering angles; and of course, there are the ever-attractive blinded-by-the-flash pictures that make the subject look like they’ve had one too many vodka shots. Abbie scrolls to the very last photo, surprised to find that it’s a crisp, straightforward capture of Crane sitting cross-legged on the couch, one arm angled out to hold the phone in place.

            Abbie feels an odd little tug at her heartstrings as the man in the photograph stares back at her with intense, bright blue eyes, his eyebrows arched in delight and fascination, a furtive smile playing around the corners of his lips. It’s an expression that Abbie doesn’t see very often, and she has come to recognize it as the one he wears whenever he’s won a small victory. In spite of everything, she feels a little ball of warmth weave its way through her veins and settle into her ribcage. (Abbie would be lying if she said she deleted any of them, convinced herself that she only kept them on her phone because she wanted to have something embarrassing to hold over Crane’s head, should she ever have reason to. And no, of course she doesn’t occasionally flip through her photos from time to time and smile at his stupid, handsome face. You see this gun? She is authorized to use it if you are to _ever_ repeat a word of this to anyone.)

            When Abbie comes outside, she finds Crane slumped against the passenger’s side door, the lower portion of his face tucked underneath the lapels of his jacket to shield himself from the cold, and, as is very likely, to hide his somber, abashed expression from Abbie. Only his eyes are visible from behind his navy blue wall of woolen pea coat comfort and warmth, and they follow Abbie with guarded precision as she makes her way to the car and motions for him to get inside. Feeling a pang of guilt glint through her chest, Abbie turns the key in the ignition, waits for a moment while the heat kicks in, and turns to look at Crane. He’s staring straight ahead, pointedly avoiding her gaze, and looking for all the world like a disgruntled little muppet. Abbie does her best not to laugh, or to find it incredibly endearing.

            “Hey,” she says, her tone as soft and gentle as her throbbing headache will allow. “I’m sorry that I snapped at you. I really don’t mean to be like that, I promise, it’s just…my head is killing me, and I’m exhausted, and we’re running late, and I guess I just got a little annoyed because that phone is brand new and kind of ridiculously expensive, and…anyway, it’s really not as big of a deal as I made it out to be. So, again…sorry.”

            There’s a little pocket of silence in which neither of them speak, and then, muffled by his pea coat, Ichabod asks, “Do you think that I am a burden, Miss Mills?”

            Abbie sighs and shakes her head, offering him a small, saddened smile, and says, “No. Honestly, in spite of everything, I really do like having you around. It might be a little stressful sometimes, and we might fight and say things we don’t mean, but you’re not a burden, okay? And I’m sorry if I ever made you think that you are. Are we good?”

            Ichabod sneaks a glance at her, cautiously surveying her expression, and then nods once, giving her a small, courteous smile.

            “If, by that, you mean, _do I accept your apology for shouting at me_ , then yes, we are good. And I, too, am sorry for disturbing your personal belongings. It was very rude of me. I should have asked.”

            Abbie smiles and breathes a sigh of relief.

            “It’s fine. Aside from a few scratches, you didn’t actually break anything. And I mean, you had the right idea…it’s good to be curious, to want to learn how stuff in this century works, especially something as vital as a phone. Just, you know, maybe with a little more supervision next time,” she says, chuckling softly as she pulls out of her driveway and heads down the main road toward the station.

            “Agreed,” he says, mimicking her expression.

            “And, hey, if you ever have any questions, feel free to ask, okay? I know how difficult it must be for you, adjusting to everything, so…I’m here to help you out, as much as I can.”

            “Thank you, Lieutenant,” he says, and then adds, “I did, in fact, have one question concerning one of the apparatuses—”

            “Applications.”

            “… _applications_ of this smartphone.”

            “Okay, shoot.”

            Ichabod pauses for a moment, mulling over the proper phrasing in his head, before inquiring, “How does the magic little man inside the plastic box paint the portraits so quickly, and with such realistic attention to detail?”

            Abbie can’t help it. Before she can stop herself, she lets loose a loud, bellowing laugh that travels all the way down to her stomach and leaves her feeling lightheaded. Ichabod pulls a face, crossing his arms over his chest in a disgruntled huff.

            “I’m sorry,” she giggles. “I really am, it’s just…how do you even come up with half the stuff you say, Crane? I’d love to live inside your head for a day.”

            “I thought, perhaps—” he tries, clearly agitated.

            “No, look, it’s okay…to be honest, I’m not even entirely sure how it works, either. Something to do with certain chemicals and metals reacting to light exposure, or something like that. Truth is, I don’t know much more than you do when it comes to the way most things work. Phone signals, the internet, computers…washing machines? All powered by electricity and chemical reactions, but that’s as far as my knowledge on the subject goes…and it’s the same for most people around here. Funny how we rely on so much that we don’t actually understand. All I can tell you is that it’s definitely not running on magic.”

            Ichabod tilts his head to the side, contemplating what Abbie had just told him.

            “You most certainly would _not_ want to live inside my head for a day,” he says after a few minutes, an impish smile spreading across his lips. “It’s rather dusty.”

            Abbie fights back a smile, taking one hand off the steering wheel to playfully swat at his arm. Ichabod feigns offense, cradling his arm against his chest as if it were wounded, and smiles to himself, pleased that he is once again capable of making her laugh, and that all is well between the two of them again…except…Crane can’t help the little sliver of doubt and confusion that needles at him from the back of his mind. As they sit in quasi-comfortable silence, Ichabod toys with just outright asking Abbie what that sweet, simple kiss last night had meant, if it had meant anything at all, otherwise he’ll only continue playing host to several more sleepless nights. He shifts closer to her in his seat and leans across the armrest, tugging on the seatbelt that’s suddenly become too constricting against his chest. The small patch of skin just below his cheekbone burns underneath an enveloping blush.

            “Miss Mills,” he hesitates, clearing his throat of its sudden tightness. “Do you remember anything from last night?”

            Abbie hums softly in fond recollection, taking her eyes off the road for just a moment to stare at him.

            “Mmm, of course I do. And it would appear that you are fishing for compliments, so I suppose, under the circumstances, I’m entitled to oblige,” she says slowly, a wry smile creeping onto her lips. “Let’s see…you made an absolutely _gorgeous_ meal for the both of us, brought home my favorite kind of wine, which I then proceeded to drink _a lot_ of…and then I woke up this morning with a killer hangover _because_ of said wine. Oh, and I’m pretty sure you talked me into a coma…which, sadly, only lasted about two hours before I had to get up for work. All in all, I’d say it was a pretty awesome night.”

            “And that is…all that you remember happening?”

            “Why? What did you do?” Abbie asks with playful accusation.

            “I’ve done nothing!” Ichabod scoffs, suddenly flustered. “Why must everything I do automatically be at fault, my actions and thoughts and feelings subject to interrogation?”

            An awkward silence settles into the atmosphere, and Ichabod realizes that he might have gone too far, his inward conflictions escaping his mouth without his express permission. He covers his lips with his hands in the hopes that he might swallow them back up. Abbie arches an eyebrow and leans in toward him, her shoulder lightly brushing against his arm, which only serves to make matters worse.

            “Crane,” she says, her voice laced with concern. “Is everything okay?”

            “I am fine, Lieutenant. Perfectly at ease,” he lies. Abbie frowns.

            “Okay, if you say so. Didn’t mean to offend. Just, you know, you _did_ scratch the hell out of my phone, so a girl is entitled to worry a little bit about the state of her apartment if she’s got a drunken soldier from the 1700’s cavorting about. But, to answer your question, no, I don’t remember anything else. Why, should I? Did I miss something good?”

            Ichabod pauses, choosing his words with care.

            “I…am not entirely certain. I do not believe that I am meant to take it as such, as it would stir conflict. _Enlightening_ would be a better word,” he decides, relaxing marginally as he shifts back over to the passenger’s side window and presses his forehead against the glass, grateful for the contrast in temperature as it cools his flushed skin.

            Abbie narrows her eyes at him for a moment, scrutinizing his expression for a hint of something, _anything_ that might give her insight to that infuriatingly cryptic response. But it’s way too fucking early, and Abbie is dead tired and in no mood whatsoever to play detective, so she decides to let it go, stores it in the back of her mind for later contemplation. Abbie can’t pretend to understand the inner workings of that convoluted mind of his, and right now, with everything that’s going on in her life, she can’t afford to waste time or put effort into trying. For right now, they’ve got work to do.


	7. Halloween

            Abbie lifts her third energy drink of the evening to her lips, meaning to take another swig, only to find that it’s empty, and groans. It’s 10PM on a Monday, three days from Halloween (and only two days until what they like to call _Hell Night_ at the station, where the inevitable onslaught of underage drinking and DUIs, frostbitten toes from poorly-dressed teens, and juvenile pranks involving toilet paper and raw eggs, making an absolute mess of other people’s cars and homes, pours into their headquarters and keeps them up way past schedule, wasting their precious time…Abbie wonders with a vague bitterness how many prank phone calls involving sightings of headless horsemen and murders by battle axe blades they’ll get at the office this year… _if only they knew the truth_ ) and Abbie is buried to her neck in unfinished paperwork that she’d had to take home from the office.

            It wouldn’t be nearly as much of a challenge to stay awake and get all of it finished if Ichabod would just _shut up_. Over the past couple of weeks, he’d managed to breeze through the rest of her Harry Potter collection, including _Quidditch Through The Ages_ and _Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them_ , and was now utterly beside himself and bored out of his mind if they talked of anything other than the series and its logical flaws, its many, many ( _completely unfair and quite frankly rude_ , in his own words) character deaths, or theories revolving around the golden trio’s current whereabouts and career prospects…or, what Abbie liked to call _Post-Potter Depression_. (In fact, Abbie still can’t mention Fred Weasley’s or Sirius Black’s names without Ichabod getting all choked up.)

            To cheer him up, she’d decided to show him the movie adaptations. He’d loved the first two, of course, but when it came to the third one, he had actually gotten up halfway through and stormed out of the living room in a huff. Apparently, he couldn’t handle the fact that they’d left out so many important details from the book, and nothing Abbie said could convince him to give the other five movies a chance. So earlier tonight, when Ichabod had started badgering her into yet another conversation about which magical degree of study and career she would pursue, Abbie had decided to introduce him to regular, cable television.

            That had been a mistake.

            The first channel that Ichabod had landed on had been SyFy, and he had watched, eyes wide with awe and wonder, as a young couple in their early twenties had entered an abandoned old warehouse in the middle of the woods.

            “What on earth are you doing?” Ichabod had exclaimed. “The sign on the barbed wire fence clearly stated that this place would be dangerous, delivering its warning in large, emboldened lettering! How could you have possibly missed it?”

_“I don’t know if we should be doing this,” said the young woman on the television. “I mean, the sign said No Trespassing. We might get in trouble.”_

“Oh. So you _did_ see the sign, and are deliberately disobeying it. Lovely. That’s intelligent,” Ichabod scoffed, throwing his hands into the air.

            _The young man beside her took her hand, flashed her a brilliant, blindingly white smile worthy of a sparkly, douchebag vampire in a YA Lit novel, and assured her that no one would ever find out that they were here. That the rumors of an escaped murder convict that had been possessed by a demon weren’t true. That it would be romantic._ Ichabod made an irritated sound at the back of his throat, and Abbie couldn’t help but smile to herself. Didn’t matter what era you come from, apparently…low-budget, pseudo science fiction thrillers would _always_ be crap. _The young couple slipped in through the gigantic, gaping hole in between the brick wall of the warehouse and the rusted, metal door, bound in all manner of broken locks and chains, and a huge sign that said DANGER: KEEP OUT!, scrawled in what appeared to be blood. As the couple ascended the winding, creaking staircase, a dark shadow crept past them, almost too quickly for the human eye to catch. The young woman clutched onto the arm of the man’s jacket, fear lacing her words as she suggested that they turn back, that maybe this wasn’t such a good idea._

            “Yes, precisely!” Ichabod had nearly shouted. “Finally, you’re talking sense! Turn back now, and it is likely that you will not die a most painful death!”

            _The young man pulled an ugly, disgruntled face, rolled his eyes, and proceeded to tell the woman, in the most condescending tone he cold muster, that monsters didn’t exist. He reached for the door handle at the end of the dark, dusty corridor, but before he could finish mocking his girlfriend’s fears, his words were drowned out by the sounds of a running chainsaw, and horribly fake, raucous screaming. Moments later, the camera panned to the claw-marked, blood-splattered wall of the warehouse, and a pair of glowing red eyes appeared from out of the shadows. Cue commercial break._

            Ichabod released a frightened gasp, turning quickly round on the couch to face Abbie, and said, “Lieutenant, that young couple…I believe that they might be dead, or at the very least, severely injured.”

            “Yup,” Abbie had said, absentmindedly licking her finger and flipping another page over onto the completed pile of paperwork. “That’s what happens when dumb kids don’t listen. There’s no common sense in horror films anymore…it’s all so clichéd and predictable.”

            Ichabod arched his eyebrows in confusion.

            “Miss Mills, how could you be so insensitive? Were you were you not paying attention to this news report? We must make haste if we are to rescue those poor, innocent victims. Perhaps, now that they are aware of the danger that they are in, they will listen to reason. I kept shouting at them through the little television box, but they simply would not heed my warnings! Could they not hear me? Was the volume not turned up all the way? I admit, I have only observed your _video chats_ with your colleagues via that _sky_ program on your laptop on very few occasions, but I am certain I have gleaned the correct way in which to do so. Is the technique for communication different when one uses the television? I still understand very little about how all of it works, and you still have not taken the time to explain to me, though I have pressed the subject several times. Regardless, this is an urgent matter and must be tended to at once! Miss Mills, do get your coat and inform the police station that we will require backup. This demon-possessed murderer could very well be in league with the headless horseman.”

            Ichabod launched himself off of the couch and headed for the kitchen, shrugging on his jacket and lacing up his boots. Abbie dropped the collection of papers she’d been holding, eyebrows arched in mild amusement as she surveyed Crane’s harried expression, until she realized that he wasn’t actually joking. No, he was being completely serious. Before she could stop herself, Abbie’s shoulders had begun to shake in uncontrollable laughter. Ichabod glared daggers at her, his features pale and stricken.

            “Miss Mills, if we do not help them, they are going to die! Why are you not more concerned? Do you not have a heart, Lieutenant?” Ichabod shouted, banging his fist on the wall beside the kitchen door.

            “Okay,” Abbie had said, the last of her laughter dissolving into a puddle of sympathy as she neatly stacked her papers and strolled into the kitchen. “First thing’s first. Those people on the tv? They’re actors. They’re not real. Well, okay, no…they’re _real people_ , but they’re only _pretending_ to play those characters. This isn’t the local news. This is SyFy. It’s a channel that plays a lot of science fiction and fantasy thrillers. It’s all fake, okay? No one’s in danger, and no one is gonna die. It’s like when I showed you those _Harry Potter_ movies, and I told you about how we have the ability to record, capture, and replay moving images and sound…well, that’s exactly what these are…it’s like…”

            “Pre-recorded theatre productions?” Ichabod finished for her.

            “Yeah, exactly. None of it is real. So, no worries, okay? Everyone’s gonna be fine.”

            “Oh. I see. Well, they were quite convincing, these young actors. Could you explain to me, then, how the communication mechanism on this television works? I would very much like to commend them on their talent,” Ichabod asked, slipping out of his jacket and boots and sinking back into the couch cushions, still a little ruffled.

            “Yeah, see, that’s the other thing. You can’t actually talk to people through the tv…only through the phone or the computer. And the app is called Skype, by the way, not _sky_. It’d be kind of cool if you _could_ talk to people through the tv, though. Give it a couple of decades, and I’m sure we’ll find a way to make that happen,” Abbie said, chuckling softly to herself as she settled back at her desk.

            “What shall I do now?” Ichabod asked after a few moments, giving the remote a withering look as he tentatively picked it up and cradled it in his palm.

            “Whatever you want, Crane,” Abbie said. “Play around with it a little, explore the channels…I’ve got about 600 of them, so I can guarantee that you won’t be bored.”

            And for a little while, it had worked. Ichabod had spent the next two hours flipping through various cooking shows, medical programs, and Animal Planet documentaries, occasionally making comments of equal parts fascination and irritation under his breath, only interrupting Abbie once or twice to voice his concerns about the concept of filmmaking and the relative safety of Animal Planet’s camera crew, which meant that Abbie had managed to get through quite a bit of her workload…that is, until Ichabod had discovered the History Channel, and had proceeded to spend an entire hour and a half shouting abuse at the television screen with a loud, obnoxious running commentary about all of its various historical inaccuracies. He’d gotten the hint and changed the channel, though, after Abbie had thrown a balled up wad of printer paper at the side of his head, and had instead turned his attention toward the weather channel…where he had spent the last twenty minutes in relative silence…that is, until—

            “Lieutenant!” Crane shouts from across the living room, no doubt waking up Abbie’s neighbors on the floor below. “Did you know that there is a station that can predict the weather? Fascinating, albeit consistently inaccurate…unless it has, in fact, been raining all week…which it most certainly has _not_! And to think, I brought that massive, confounded contraption you call a _numbrella_ with me every time I left home, and all for naught! In my day, they were called parasols…lovely, petite little instruments, crafted from much softer, and much more aesthetically pleasing materials, with the sole purpose of shading one’s skin from the harmful rays of the sun…not this sort of bulky, oversized nonsense. Who would _need_ such a device? Are the thunderstorms of this century really so violent and tempestuous?”

            Abbie rolls her eyes from behind her stack of paperwork, and pointedly ignores Crane’s tirade, shaking her head and humming to herself as she crosses out section after incorrect section of documented witness accounts. Ichabod peers over at Abbie for a few seconds longer, hoping to coax a reaction out of her as he drapes his arms across the back of the couch, no doubt twisting his spine to keep his potion intact. After a few moments, he heaves a melodramatic sigh and turns back round, tucking his legs up to his chest, and repeatedly clicking the little plus button on the remote, the channels whipping past him in a flurry of flashing colors and broken, distorted sounds.

            Thirty channels later, Ichabod lands on ABC Family, which has been hosting an endless variety of Halloween specials since the beginning of October. This time, they’re playing _It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown_ , which, much to Abbie’s relief, manages to shut Ichabod up for a total of twenty-five minutes. And then the program rolls credits.

            “Lieutenant,” Ichabod calls, softer this time. “Could you tell me more about your era’s alterations of All Hallow’s Eve? It seems a bit puerile, but I rather think I might like it.”

            Abbie sighs, tucking the last of her paperwork into a manila folder and shoving it into the top drawer of her desk, before traipsing over to the couch and slumping onto one of the cushions beside Crane. For a moment, their shoulders touch, and Crane instantly moves to the opposite end of the couch. Abbie rolls her eyes and takes the remote from him.

            “Halloween isn’t the same as you remember it, Crane, it’s become less religious, and more…commercialized, you could say. But it can still be pretty fun, depending on what you do. Some people dress up in costume, as cats and ghosts and witches, and go out to parties, get drunk, bob for apples…that kind of stuff. Some people go trick-or-treating. Basically, little kids get all dressed up in cute little costumes and go around their neighborhood ringing doorbells and getting candy. Some people, like me, just like to stay home and watch scary movies…good ones, though, not like that one you were watching earlier.”

            “And what, pray tell, are we going to do this year?” Ichabod asks, his expression brightening considerably at the prospect of celebrating a holiday he’s actually familiar with. “If I remember correctly, Hallowmas begins in just three days’ time.”

            “I don’t know, Crane,” Abbie sighs. “I’ll probably have to work. There’s gonna be all sorts of messes to clean up and sort out after Mischief Night. I’ll probably be too exhausted to do anything, honestly.”

            Ichabod gives her a confused look, and Abbie complies before he even has to ask.

            “It’s the night before Halloween where kids play stupid pranks…egging people’s cars, throwing rolls of toilet paper over people’s houses…juvenile stuff, but people can get pretty pissed about it, and if the kids gets caught, we get called in to apprehend them.”

            “I see…and that is somehow different from adorning one’s front lawn in all manner of ridiculous props, including spider webs and pumpkins with faces carved into them?”

            “Well, yeah. Eggs can seriously damage people’s stuff. And if it rains, toilet paper is a bitch to clean up. But all the spiders, and the pumpkins, and the ghosts, and orange and purple faerie lights? Those are Halloween decorations…they’re supposed to be cute or scary. And I mean, some of the neighbors can get a little carried away, but, you know…it’s nice, it’s…festive. I always like driving past and looking at all of the decorations.”

            “Then why have you not yet decorated _your home_ for Hallowe’en?”

            Abbie shrugs. “I don’t know, I mean…I haven’t, really, for a couple of years now. Not since I was a teenager…my foster family always liked hanging up decorations, though. I guess I just grew out of it, never really had the time to go out and shop for decorations, and this year, well…we’ve just been so busy with the headless horseman case that I just never even thought to do it. Kind of miss it, though…I always liked Halloween.”

            Ichabod stares at her for a long moment, mulling over everything that Abbie had just told him. After a few minutes, Abbie yawns, tired eyes fluttering closed as she bids Crane goodnight and slips behind her bedroom door. As Ichabod heads to his own bedroom, a brilliant idea unfolds inside his head, followed by a wicked smile.

            On the evening of October 31st, after a never-ending, hellish day at the station, Abbie bursts through the front door of her apartment, craving insane amount of chocolate, a hot cup of coffee, and a year-long nap. Instead, Abbie is greeted by a horrible clash of colors in the form of orange, brown, green, and purple paper streamers that appear to be affixed to her ceiling by scotch tape. Orange and purple faerie lights with black and green wires have been wrapped around the tops of her window frames, glowing brightly against the curtains, and strung around the arms of her furniture, including, rather redundantly, her lamps. Paper cut-outs of adorable little ghosts, pumpkins, and autumn leaves with sharpied-on faces have been stuck to nearly every inch of the walls.

            In spite of her rotten mood from an exhausting day at the station, Abbie can’t help but smile, laughing to herself as she grabs a handful of mini chocolate bars that have been poured into a nearby party bowl. Seconds later, Ichabod emerges from his bedroom, clutching Abbie’s laptop under his arm, and offers her a cheeky grin.

            “Crane,” she says, unwrapping one of the Hershey’s bars and popping it into her mouth. “Where did you get all of this? No, wait… _how_ did you get all of this?”

            “I took the bus to that Target shopping center that you had driven me to twice before, and chose what I thought would be the best Hallowmas decorations, just as you had described to me a few days prior. I thought, since you’d told me that you hadn’t had the time to decorate for this celebrated holiday, that I would take the liberty to do it for you. I…I do hope you like it, Miss Mills. It took me the better part of two hours and three rolls of that sticky paper to put together…oh, and I used one of your little magic plastic cards I found lying about the living room to purchase the decorations and the sweets.”

            Ichabod bounces on the balls of his feet, utterly unable to contain his enthusiasm.

            “Again, not magic…just a credit card. And don’t use it again without asking me first,” Abbie says, giving him a stern look.

            “But I’ve got to admit,” she adds, her expression softening, “You did good. Looks really…festive in here.”

            As Abbie walks further into the apartment, she notices that there are piles of plastic spiders stuck in faux webbing that have been cloaked around the couch, mini pumpkins sitting atop her kitchen counters and coffee table, and what appears to be…what are those, mice, hanging from various corners of the room? No. _Oh no_. Those aren’t mice, they’re…

            “Crane,” Abbie says, dropping her handful of Halloween candy onto the coffee table and unhooking one of the “mice” from its place on the ceiling. “Tell me you didn’t use my tampons as Halloween decorations.”

            “Apologies, Lieutenant…should I not have?” Ichabod asks, carefully placing the laptop on the coffee table and unfastening yet another “mouse” from the ceiling, dangling it in between his fingertips from its little cotton tail. “I’ll admit that I am not entirely certain as to what they were for. I found them in an open box in the bathroom and assumed that they could be used for decoration. After you pop them out of their little plastic case, they look rather like faceless mice! So I drew on faces with that foul-smelling quill you’ve got dozens of in your desk drawer, and hung them from the ceiling. Do tell me, if they’re not for decoration…then why do you have bits of cotton lying about in a box? Additionally, what exactly is a _Tampax_? It sounds like an illness…are you ill, Lieutenant?”

            Worry and fear flash across Ichabod’s face, and in an instant, he’s by Abbie’s side, towering over her like an overly-cautious giant of a man, and reaches down to place the back of his hand against her forehead. Abbie sighs, all of the anger and mortification dissipating in a surge of appreciation for his concern.

            “Okay, Crane,” she says, plunging head-first into a conversation that Abbie had hoped she’d never have to have with him. “First of all, we need to have a serious talk about boundaries, and about not touching each other’s stuff, okay? Second…how can I put this? Tampax is a company that makes products _for women_.”

            Abbie hopes like hell that it’s enough, but Crane’s utterly bewildered expression only proves that it’s not. He stares at her blankly, waiting for her to continue. Abbie sighs.

            “For that thing they get each month,” she elaborates, arching her eyebrows and giving him a meaningful look. Ichabod tilts his head to the side, eyes scrunched up in confusion and contemplation. Abbie can tell the exact moment when it all clicks together in his head, because Ichabod’s eyes grow impossibly wide, and his features transition from elated and prideful to embarrassed and mildly horrified in one fluid motion, a faint blush creeping across his cheekbones as he tosses the tampon far across the room. For a few moments, the two of them just stare at one another, neither of them daring to be the first one that breaks the awkward silence. Ichabod stumbles, attempting some form of coherent speech, clears his throat several times, and then says, “I’ve also bought apple cider mead, and I hear that the alcohol content is quite high.”

            “Oh thank god,” Abbie sighs, releasing a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding in. Ichabod practically sprints to the kitchen while Abbie quickly collects and bins all of the decorated Halloween “mice”. Embarrassment forgotten with each new glass of apple cider mead, Abbie and Ichabod spend the rest of the evening in a comfortable silence on the living room couch, watching all manner of scary, stupid, and heartwarming Halloween films and binging on a mountain of Halloween-themed chocolates. All in all, it’s the best Halloween that Abbie has had in years.


	8. Addictions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's a shameless amount of Supernatural references in here and I'm not even the slightest bit sorry.

            It’s Tuesday evening, less than a week after Halloween, and Ichabod Crane is sprawled across the living room couch, his long, gangly legs stretched out and swinging over the edge of the armrest. He’s clad in Abbie’s bathrobe, a pair of plaid pajama pants, a loose-fitting t-shirt, and tube socks that have been scrunched down to his ankles, his long, brown hair a disheveled mess against a tiny, decorative pillow. A mountain of crumpled-up candy wrappers from discounted Halloween-themed chocolates is piling up on the coffee table in front of him. Ichabod’s bright blue eyes rove the television screen, transfixed by two moving figures, each of whom appear to be beaten and broken, their plaid button-down shirts and faded green jackets covered in blood and graveyard dirt. Too distracted to pay attention to anything else, Ichabod reaches for yet another mini Snickers bar, and accidentally knocks over a box of Pumpkin Pie Smidgens in the process.

            After a long, tiring day at the station, this is what Abbie comes home to.

            The lights in her living room are dimmed to a soft lull, and Ichabod is clearly too absorbed in his show to notice Abbie sneaking up behind him, stifling a laugh as she creeps toward the very edge of the couch. After a few seconds, Abbie calls his name, and Ichabod gives a violent jerk of his head, jumping up from the couch and mumbling something about a wendigo. Abbie can’t help it…he’s all scruffy and unkempt in his modern-era pajamas, like a kid on a Saturday morning, eyes so wide she fears they might pop clean out of his head, eyebrows nearly kissing his hairline and mouth agape in horror…it’s somehow simultaneously adorable and hilarious, and Abbie laughs so hard she nearly pulls a muscle.

            “Miss Mills,” Ichabod gasps, clearly scandalized. “You gave me a fright! I did not know that you had returned home for the evening…your gait is remarkably quiet and you were swathed in the shadows of your living room…a startling mimicry of this program’s monsters. Apologies for my current state of dress,” he adds, sweeping a hand across his figure and wrapping Abbie’s bathrobe tighter around his waist. “There is a chance that I might have developed a bit of an addiction to this television program I found on your Netflix account, and I am sorry to report that I have done little else all day.”

            “Is that so?” Abbie asks, crossing her arms and fighting back a smile.

            “Yes, well…at first, I thought that it was a predictive documentary on how to prepare for an impending apocalypse and all manner of mythical horrors, much like the one we are destined to confront. The people of this century do seem keen on creating such nonsensical things, after all…like that dreadful zombie preparation program you made me watch on Hallowmas…or the one with those futuristic sharks. Oh, the nightmares I had after that,” Ichabod says, scrunching up his lips and shaking off a full-body shiver.

            “I did not, of course, expect for the documentary to be educational or instructive…how could it be, when even the chosen witnesses haven’t the slightest inkling of what our trials and tribulations will bring? Nevertheless, I assumed that watching the program could not hinder us in any way. As it happens, I quickly gleaned that these young, co-dependent brothers are actually quite appallingly bad at battling the paranormal, as they seem to die, or at the very least, brutally injure themselves, rather often in doing so…and that this must be another theatrical performance. I assumed that I would not learn very much from a work of fiction, and I was proven correct…however, that did not seem to deter me from repeatedly selecting the “next episode” option at the close of each installment. The program is wrought with entertainment, and…I somehow managed to watch the entirety of the first season in one day.”

            Abbie chuckles, dropping her coat on a nearby chair, shucking off her boots, and strolling over to the couch to take a seat beside Crane.

            “You wouldn’t be the first,” she says, stealing the remote and scrolling through the list of new episodes before selecting season two…it’s been a long while since Abbie’s watched this show…looks like they both have a lot of catching up to do.

            “If I remember right, season two’s my favorite. And _just wait_ until you meet Castiel…I have a feeling you two would get along really well,” she says, dragging the throw blanket from the top of the couch and bundling them both up in it. Abbie clicks play on _In My Time of Dying_ , and smiles as the familiar old show title bursts across the screen. Maybe she won’t be so scared to watch it this time, now that she doesn’t have to do it alone.

            “Pass me a Snickers,” Abbie says after a few minutes, eyes glued to the screen. Ichabod pauses mid-chew, crumples the wrapper in his hand, and glances over at Abbie, eyes wide with mock innocence.

            “I…I am afraid that I have just eaten the last one,” he says, smiling sheepishly.

            “Of course you did,” Abbie sighs, rolling her eyes and giving his shoulder a playful shove as she reaches for the box of Smidgens…which is also empty.

            “Crane, seriously? Did you eat _all_ of the candy?”

            “I might’ve done,” Crane mumbles over a mouthful of chocolate and caramel.

            “And now you’ve probably got Diabetes,” Abbie says, tipping the chocolate box onto the floor. “Really, though, you’ve got a bad addiction going here…I don’t even want to know how many cavities you’ve got right now.”

            “Cavities?” Ichabod asks, eyes wide with fear.

            “Brush your teeth, you’ll be fine,” Abbie laughs, wrapping the blanket around her shoulders and snuggling up closer to Crane. He tenses for about a fraction of a second when she rests her head on his shoulder, but then relaxes, draping an arm around her waist and tucking his legs up to his chest. Abbie’s watched most of these episodes already, back when they first came out…so mostly, she just watches him, smiles privately at his reactions, at his enthusiasm and his insistence that they keep playing episode after episode. And maybe, just maybe…Abbie becomes a little addicted, too.


	9. Not Actually Candy

            Ichabod Crane has developed a serious addiction to sweets, a fact that comes to light one evening in mid-November, when the two of them are all cuddled up on the living room couch, stomachs fit to bursting from all the curry chicken and beef lo mein they’d devoured. A collection of takeaway containers is strewn about the coffee table, remnants of oil and sauce seeping through the crevices of their paper prisons and dripping onto the polished, wooden surface. Abbie scrunches up her nose, the taste in her mouth fading from delicious to disgusting way faster than she’d like it to.

            “Hey Crane,” she says, slowly drawing out the words as she pokes his thigh with her fuzzy-sock-clad foot, and wrapping her blanket tighter around her shoulders. “Could you reach into my purse and grab me a mint? You can have one, too, if you want.”

            Crane immediately obeys, reaching over the arm of the couch and pulling Abbie’s purse onto his lap. He sifts through its contents for a few moments, before pulling out a plastic, circular piece of packaging that he assumes must be some sort of confection, and his eyes light up, a wry smile spreading across his lips. Crane had taken to discounted Halloween candy a little obsessively, hoarding bags of chocolate in his bedroom (Abbie would find a mountain of empty wrappers littering her rubbish bin almost every morning,) and after three toothache incidents and nearly a fortnight spent listening to Crane whining that he was sick to his stomach and would never eat another drop of chocolate ever again (a blatant lie, of course,) Abbie had decided that enough was enough, and had resolved to keep a stricter watch on Crane’s spending habits, making sure to hide her secret stash of time-of-the-month comfort candy in her underwear drawer, a place she knew he’d never dare look.

            Triumphant in his imagined success, Crane pops one of the tiny, white “mints” out of its case, and no sooner has he stuck it into his mouth is he spitting it back out, waving his hands about wildly and scrunching up his nose in disgust.

            “Ugh, these mints are awful,” he mumbles, wiping his tongue on the palms of his hands to try to get the terrible taste out of his mouth.

            “Oh my god, Crane,” Abbie nearly shouts, eyes wide with horror. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

            “I was…I thought it was candy,” Crane admits, shame coloring his expression.

            “Yeah, um…those are definitely not candy…or mints, for that matter.”

            “And a good thing, too,” he says, shoving the little disc of pills back into Abbie’s purse. “It certainly doesn’t taste like any candy I’ve ever had…like eating flavored chalk.”

            Abbie pauses, sucks in a breath of air, steadies herself.

            “That’s because they’re birth control pills,” she says, rolling her eyes and sighing because _is this really what her life has become_? She’d never thought she’d have to have this conversation with Crane. Just as she’d expected, Crane’s eyes grow comically wide, and he shifts all the way to the other side of the couch like Abbie’s suddenly become poisonous, looking her up and down in a curiously horrified fashion.

            “Are you pregnant, Lieutenant?” he asks, his voice so soft she can barely hear him.

            “What? No, of course not,” Abbie says, a little more forcefully than she means to.

            Ichabod relaxes infinitesimally, but then Abbie adds, “that’s exactly what birth control _prevents_ ,” and Ichabod looks like he’s about to lose his mind, so Abbie tries her best to explain.

            “I beg your most unbelievable pardon? I don’t understand. How could a tiny pill taken once daily prevent an entire person from forming? It isn’t natural! It’s unheard of! Are you quite sure that it’s even _safe_? Are you _absolutely positive_ that your era does not practice witchcraft? This sounds like dark magic to me,” he prompts, looking extremely worried.

            “Not witchcraft,” Abbie assures him. “Science. Biology…and a bit of chemistry, I guess. Hormones. I’m not entirely sure how it works, but it just does. Most of the time. It’s a good thing, Crane, trust me. It gives a woman complete control over her body, lets her decide when she wants to have kids, and when she just wants to have a bit of fun. There’re other methods, but this is the one that works best for me.”

            Crane raises his eyebrows in curiosity, and chooses his next words with delicate care.

            “And you would know this because you are…actively engaging in—?”

            “Whoah, okay…we’re heading into really personal territory here…but um, no, that’s not…no. At least, not for a while now,” she concedes, her mind briefly flashing back to images of Luke, fast asleep in her bed. She doesn’t know why she feels the need to confirm that she’s not seeing anyone. It’s not like it’s any of Crane’s business what she gets up to in her spare time, or whom she chooses to spend it with. It’s kind of weird that Crane had even brought it up in the first place. His memory was eidetic, his imagination extensively detailed…had he thought of her in such an intimate setting, if only for a brief moment? She wasn’t entirely certain how she felt about that. Abbie shakes her head as if to clear it, but instead, her memories of Luke shift, and suddenly, it’s Crane’s long, lanky figure that she’s imagining curled around her bed sheets, the outline of his curves as crisp and clear as it if were right in front of her, his hair a disheveled mess, bestrewn across her pillowcase, her head resting on his chest as it rises and falls in a slow and steady rhythm.

            Crane clears his throat, ripping Abbie out of her strange, and, (she’s rather surprised to find,) not so unpleasant, reverie.

            “I…I’m sorry, Crane. Zoned out for a minute there,” she chuckles softly in an attempt to diffuse the situation, a note of nervousness in her laughter. “What were you saying?”

            “I…I was merely inquiring as to why…if you aren’t, erm…spending your evenings in the intimate company of a gentleman…then why do you continue your use of these hormone-altering supplements?” Crane asks in a hushed tone, warmth rapidly spreading to the tips of his ears, trailing in a spiral down the back of his neck. Abbie thinks it over for a moment.

            “Habit, I guess,” she replies, motioning for Crane to hand over her purse, and reaching for a breath mint. “Plus, it’s not like I’m going to be single forever. Who knows? Maybe, seven years from now, when the apocalypse is over and done with, and I’ve got some free time, I’ll meet someone.”

            Crane huffs out a laugh that sounds more flustered than amused.

            “I do not imagine you’ll have any trouble in doing so, given your…” Crane trails off, swallowing his words before they get the change to ruin him.

            “Given my what?” Abbie prompts, curiosity getting the best of her, in spite of her better judgment.

            “Well, I…” Crane attempts, the corners of his cheeks blushing a pale shade of pink. “I was merely going to comment on your aesthetic qualities…but then I realized how brash and inappropriate that would sound, given my marital status.”

            Abbie nods in understanding, biting back a smile at what he’d just implied…no, _outright admitted_.

            “And, of course,” Crane continues, digging himself further into his metaphorical hole. “Given the unwavering fact that women, yourself in particular, have far more to offer in a romantic relationship that your appearance…a quality, I am most ashamed to admit, that was revered in my era as one of the highest levels of importance, second only to social status and wealth. Most of the men that I have had the displeasure of meeting had all been rather focused on little else in their pursuit of marriage. For reasons unknown to me, most of those men could not grasp the simple fact that women are people, equal to that of men, and have so much more to offer than what their conventional image and expectations portray.”

            “For example,” he says, the corners of his lips curving into a genuine smile as his bright, blue eyes meet hers. “Bravery and loyalty are, in my opinion, qualities to be revered, and you, Miss Mills, are wrought with astounding levels of both. Your wisdom and intelligence rivals that of my own. You are kind, clever, and exceedingly selfless in your actions. After all, you are fighting a battle against the literal forces of evil.”

            “Only because I was chosen as a witness, it’s not like we really had a choice in the matter,” Abbie argues, ignoring, for the moment, everything else that he had just said.

            “Of course we had a choice,” Crane presses. “The both of us could have, in theory, taken a step back from all of this nonsense and turned our backs on the impending war. But we chose not to. We chose to stand and fight, knowing full well that we may die in doing so. But still, here we are, risking our lives to make certain that this world remains a safe place to live. And that is truly incredible.”

            “It comes with the job description, I guess,” Abbie says, shrugging off his compliments as though they’re qualities that any decent human being is supposed to have.

            “True,” Crane amends. “You are, first and foremost, an officer of the law. Protecting the public is in your blood.”

            “A fact that only serves to increase the quantity of your never-ending list of admirable qualities. Any man would be lucky to have you…and would be a fool to let you go,” Crane confesses softly, the sudden shift in his expression suggesting that he regrets having admitted something so bold. Abbie is the first to break their staring match, shifting toward the opposite end of the couch and bundling herself up in her blanket. After a few moments, Abbie turns to look at him, her blanket drawn so tight around her that all Crane can see is her forehead, eyes, and the tip of her nose. He’s staring straight ahead, expression unreadable, watching her out of the corner of his eye, waiting for her reaction, for her to make everything alright between them again.

            “Thank you,” Abbie nearly whispers, her voice muffled by the blanket. “That’s very sweet of you to say.”

            “I only speak the truth,” he replies, fighting back a smile. “And you are most welcome, Lieutenant Mills.”

            In spite of her resolve, Abbie’s lips curve into a ridiculous grin, thankful that Crane can’t see her face. She turns back toward the television, absentmindedly clicking through the channels in an attempt to find something they can both agree on (preferably something without sex, or nudity, or romance of any kind… _Game Of Thrones_ had been a huge mistake) and keeps the volume turned low, as the two of them fall into a quasi-comfortable silence. She tries her hardest not to fall asleep, but she’s just so cozy, all wrapped up in her blanket burrito, and not too soon after she’s considered dragging herself back to her bedroom, exhaustion consumes her, and the sounds from the television become a soft lull in the background, and she’s falling asleep on the couch with Crane sat beside her, turning his words over and over in her head so many times that she might as well have memorized them. It’s a silly thing, to think that something could ever happen between them…but what’s the harm in dreaming, as long as it’s only just that?


	10. Dreams

            It starts with a fight. It _always_ starts with a fight.

            They’re alone in the archives, after a never-ending evening of seemingly senseless research, tempers rising as high as the stakes pinned against them with every twist and turn, with every failed attempt at piecing together a plan to thwart their newest supernatural adversary, and Abbie is caught in the crossfire of one of Ichabod Crane’s signature glares. Except that it’s never quite the same, whenever it’s cast upon her…there’s always an underlying softness, an over-protective gentleness to his tone that he seems to reserve just for her, like he’s afraid he’ll break her with a simple string of irrevocable words, and she’ll come undone, crumbling to her knees. There’s none of that uncontrolled rage and raw emotion that comes pouring out of him from years of regret and self-loathing, not with Abbie…and it only serves to make her all the more furious with him.

            Because Abbie hates it when he treats her like this, like she’s a fragile little child, forgets that she’s built herself a life upon the ashes of a miserable past, on years of bitterness and betrayal and remorse, forgets that she can be strong, that she can take whatever he’s willing, or, as it is, _unwilling_ , to throw her way. He should know better than to cross her like this, should know better than to treat her like anything but his equal, even if he only does so for split-seconds in time, for infinitesimal moments of foolish forgetfulness. By now, he should know that the flames of his fury are never going to be potent enough to burn her. And, somewhere, in the back of her mind, she knows that he only does it because he’s afraid he’ll cross a line and lose her trust…but that’s still no excuse.

            And he must see the truth of it, etched in the downward curve of her eyebrows, in the smolder of her dark brown eyes, locked firmly onto his, unwavering, because in an instant, he’s finally learning to let go, finally realizing that he can trust her to accept him as he is, chaotic past and all, to trust that she can handle him at his worst, a collection of unforgivable, unintended words spilling out of his mouth, and it’s enough to send her pulse racing, to flood her veins with adrenaline, every nerve ending in her body lighting up like a live wire. Without even thinking, Abbie steps forward to close the space between them, grasping him by the lapels of his jacket and tugging him toward her, reveling at the feeling of his lips colliding with hers, in the finality of the moment. Whether it’s out of an unraveling, bottled-up desire for _him_ , or simply for the need to _shut him up_ , Abbie isn’t sure.

            She expects him to freeze, to fall to pieces underneath her touch, to push her away and run from the archives, from feelings he’s too afraid to admit he’s become afflicted with, from _her_ …and when he does, she expects to laugh at his cowardice, at his reluctance and his inability to confront the tension that’s been building between them for months…what she _doesn’t_ expect is for Crane to react immediately, wrapping his arms around her waist, so that his fingertips are digging into the delicate skin of her hips, pulling her closer so that she’s flush against his chest. She doesn’t expect his tongue to slip in between her lips and find hers with fervor, doesn’t expect to feel his hands weaving through her hair, lightly brushing against the nape of her neck, sending a twist of electricity down her spine. She doesn’t expect him to clear their shared desk of its mountain of ancient books in one swift sweep of his hand, doesn’t expect him to lift her from where she’s standing and set her atop it, winding his way between her legs and melting into her to resume exploring her mouth with his.

            But he does, and as Crane threads a torturous trail of kisses down the length of her neck, his tongue dipping into the crevice at the base of her throat, Abbie starts to think that maybe she was wrong to assume that he couldn’t make her come undone, couldn’t possibly send her crumbling to her knees…she just didn’t expect that it would happen _like this_. Crane makes quick work of their clothes, delicately disentangling soft fabric from metal clasps with his long, nimble fingertips, ridding her of her uniform and him of his complicated ensemble in mere seconds, and then he’s pressed between her thighs once more, hands hungrily roaming her skin; lips, teeth, and tongue focused solely on the task of drawing slow and steady proliferated moans from the depths of Abbie’s throat.

            “Lieutenant,” he teases, hot breath against the curve of her ear, the word coming out as a strangled moan in his favored pronunciation, and it’s enough to send her over the edge, to unravel her from the inside out…only his voice is growing louder, his tone laced with an intensity, with an air of underlying frustration, and—

            “Lieutenant Mills,” Crane all but shouts, ripping Abbie out of her reverie and back into the present, back into the dim daylight of their underground headquarters. Abbie wakes with a jolt, nearly tipping over her leather armchair in the process, and shoots a dazed, bleary-eyed glance at Crane. He’s sat across from her in his own armchair, fully clothed and thoroughly unruffled, with his hands neatly folded over a dusty old book perched in his lap, returning her shameless stare with a questioning quirk of his brow.

            “Are you quite alright, Miss Mills?” he asks, tone softening with mild concern.

            Abbie shakes her head as if to clear it, casts her eyes downward to glare at her trembling hands…she couldn’t possibly look him in the eye, not now…not after what they’d just done inside her head.

            “I’m fine, Crane,” she manages, angry at her voice for coming out so shaky and uncertain. “Sorry about dozing off…it won’t happen again.”

            Crane stares at her for a long while, an unreadable expression emblazoned upon his features, before giving her a curt nod, having apparently deemed her response acceptable, and resumes his perusal, making occasional passing remarks about his findings while the afternoon slips into night, and Abbie pretends that she can’t feel his eyes, wrought with worry, boring into her, needling their way underneath her skin, whenever he thinks she isn’t looking.

            _It was just a dream_ , Abbie reassures herself, _just a stupid, meaningless dream_ …and there’s no harm in dreaming…right? Like she’d said, _it won’t happen again_.

            Except that the dreams keep coming, weaving their way into her thoughts throughout the day, invading her mind and disrupting her sleep throughout the malapropos hours of the night, so that she can think of nothing else when she wakes, skin slick with sweat, bed sheets a tangled mess around her ankles and thighs, arms curled around the invisible torso of a man who’ll likely never awaken beside her. And it’s only a dream, but it’s all so vivid, like a buried, long-lost memory biting its way back to the surface, and Abbie could almost swear that when she wakes from these dreams (she doesn’t even spare herself the indignity of calling them nightmares,) she can feel the pressure of his body weight against hers, as though it had been there just moments ago, can feel the burn embedded in the surface of her skin from the gentle scrape of stubble as a pair of soft, pink lips trace complex patterns from her neck all the way down to her thighs. And it feels so real that Abbie wonders if she’s going insane, has to repeatedly remind herself that it’s just a dream, though it does little to steady her breathing.

            Ichabod Crane is becoming a problem. And it’s not even his fault, not really, but it makes Abbie feel a bit better to assign him partial blame. Because at this point, after a week straight of vivid sex dreams about her partner in crime, it’s really gotten out of hand, and Abbie is starting to lose her focus. She can’t seem to stop staring at his hands, at the way they move so fluidly whenever he’s gesticulating, her eyes lingering on his lips for far longer than necessary as he speaks, meticulously roving the lean, muscular curves of his body, hidden underneath his clothes as he paces about their underground headquarters. And maybe it wouldn’t be so hard to deal with, this unexpected, unrequited attraction to a man over 250 years her senior, if only she wasn’t losing sleep over it.

            In her sleep-deprived frustration, Abbie accidentally ends up taking her vexation out on Crane, snapping at him for the most seemingly random, mundane things, scolding him for sticking his tongue out at her in puerile jest, and demanding that he stop twirling pens and pencils in between his long, slender fingertips as he’s writing, or quietly drumming them across the desk in a slow and steady rhythm, whenever he’s lost himself deep in thought. And no matter the request, however bellicose her demeanor, Crane always obliges, apologizing for his unknown offenses, casting her wounded looks as his eyes search hers for answers she’ll never give him. He refuses to stop looking at her like that, won’t believe her dubious reassurances that she’s _fine_ , that she’s just _preoccupied_ , that she’s _stressed_ or _tired_ or _hungry_ or whatever else Abbie can think of to tell him in place of the truth, to get him to shut up and leave her alone. He keeps staring at her like he _knows_ , and if, by some mysterious misfortune, he _does_ know, then he certainly doesn’t seem to mind.

            One evening, when they’ve driving back home from the station, Abbie twists the radio dial to a near deafening level and sings along, hoping it’ll calm her nerves and help drown him out of her thoughts. And for a little while, it actually works. Halfway through one of her favorite songs, she’s really getting into it, tapping her hands along the steering wheel, a genuine smile spreading across her lips for a the first time in a week. But of course, just as she’s belting out a long, low note, Ichabod feels the need to intervene, leaning across the forbidden neutral zone of armrests and cup holders to turn down the volume, and Abbie quickly shuts her mouth, cheeks flushing with embarrassment as she slaps his hands away from the dial.

            “What the hell was that for?” Abbie quips, mouth curling into a frown. Devoid of a proper response, Ichabod merely stares at her in astonishment, and the atmosphere within the car falls uncomfortably still. After an excruciating two minutes of silence, the cogs inside Ichabod’s head finally click together, and, having apparently decided on telling Abbie what he’d been thinking, summons the drive to speak.

            “You may not always trust my judgment in most areas as they correlate between aspects of your era and mine,” he says, his words tumbling out of his mouth in a nervous rush, afraid that he might accidentally upset her and earn another disapproving glare. “But might I just inform you that your singing voice is like that of an angel’s?”

            Fuck, well that’s just…not helping _at all_.

            “Oh my god, Crane, you _really_ need to shut up,” Abbie blurts, the words leaping past the barrier between her mouth and her brain before she can stop herself. Abbie instantly feels horrible for having spoken to him like that, and is about to apologize, when Crane interrupts.

            “Is that…no longer a compliment in this century?” he asks, clearly scandalized. “I am merely trying to suggest that you should sing more often, if it pleases you, and it clearly does, given the unusual amount of smiling.”

            He adds special emphasis to the word _pleases_ and Abbie wants to set herself on fire.

            “And I do so wish that you would not restrict your lovely singing voice to the non-existent audience of your shower,” he continues, ignoring the look on Abbie’s face at the implication that he’d listened to her singing in the shower, that he’d hovered outside of her bathroom door, while she was _completely naked_ on the other side, just to hear her sing. “Or under your breath when you’re distracted, or bored, for that matter…but instead, out loud as you were just now, because your singing voice is beautiful, and I would consider it a privilege to hear it more often.”

            “Crane,” Abbie groans, gripping the steering wheel with more force than is strictly necessary, all of the muscles in her body tightly wound like a coil. “I…thank you, I appreciate it, I really do, but you’re gonna need to stop saying stuff like that to me.”

            Ichabod quirks an eyebrow, concern and curiosity battling for dominance.

            “May I inquire as to why?” he asks, lilting the words.

            “No, you may not,” she ripostes, staring straight ahead and ignoring the quizzical look he’s giving her. It should be illegal to have eyes that blue.

            “Grace Abigail Mills,” he says, his voice low and gravelly. Abbie feels a shiver run up her spine…he only ever uses her name, her _real_ name, when he’s desperate.

            “If it’s not too bold to say, your behavior has been unusually hostile these past few days. Please, I beg of you, tell me what is wrong,” he says with a soft urgency.

            “Nothing’s wrong, Crane. I’m sorry I snapped at you…and for the way I’ve been acting all week. I haven’t really been sleeping all that well, and I just…just _don’t_ , okay?” she says, pleading with him to just _let it go_. He purses his lips, ready to argue, but instead says nothing, a thousand unspoken questions and condolences filling the air between them, suffocating them both, until Crane can’t take it anymore. He turns to her suddenly, an unfathomed thought having just occurred to him.

            “Did you have another prophetic dream?” he asks, innocently enough, but Abbie nearly runs a red light.

            “Was I in it?” he presses, and then a few seconds later, “What was I doing?”

            A cascade of memories, of _dreams_ , floods Abbie’s mind…Crane, crowding her against her bedroom door, warm hands sliding down her waist, wrapped tight around her thighs as he lifts her up and carries her to the bed, a wicked gleam in his eye…his reddened lips, pouted and swollen from kissing her breathless, winding their way across every inch of her skin, burning her every curve into his memory…the sounds that he makes in response to her pleasure, pleasure that Crane alone is responsible for giving her, his breathing laborious as he collapses against her, and when they wake in the morning, they’re still entwined…in her dreams, it’s easy, it’s simple…there aren’t any barriers to separate them, to break them apart and prevent them from being together…and the ache that settles into Abbie’s heart is too much to even consider. So Abbie does what she always does, and pushes it to the back of her mind, choking down her mortification, and puts on a calm and collected façade, hoping it’s enough to fool Crane into thinking that it’s real.

            “It’s nothing,” she says, her voice stronger, more even now, and for a moment, she almost tricks herself into believing that it’s true, that she’s fine. “Trust me, it was not, by any means, prophetic.”

            Abbie turns the volume back up, doesn’t sing, doesn’t say a word for the rest of the ride home, and Crane surrenders in defeat, shifting back over to his side of the car and pressing his forehead against the passenger’s side window, all the while stealing covert glances at Abbie, hoping that his Lieutenant will return to her normal self in due time, and that all can be well between them once more. Whatever he’s managed to do to upset her, he’s truly sorry, and wishes that he could take it back. If only he knew.


	11. Eidetic

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: may contain ridiculous amounts of mainpain and angst.

            One of the few notable qualities that Ichabod Crane possesses (in his modest opinion) is his eidetic memory, and, after months of living in Abbie’s company, spending nearly every waking moment with her, whether it’s at their underground headquarters, perusing old religious texts for any trace of useful information, out on supernatural patrol, out shopping at the trade markets in town, or snuggled up on the sofa at their ( _her_ , he has to repeatedly correct himself) apartment, he’s learned to read every single one of her facial expressions, has memorized every curve and marking, down to the very last freckle. By now, he’s come to recognize, almost immediately, when something is bothering her, and as much as it frustrates him that she won’t just be honest with him about it, it’s nothing compared to the vexation he feels over the fact that he can’t puzzle it out on his own.

            Over the past week, Abbie’s behavior had been nothing less than startling. Much to Ichabod’s disfavor, Abbie had seemed to gravitate back and forth between blissful (if the upward curve to her partially parted lips and slightly unfocused, far off gaze she’d fix on an unmoving target in the distance was any indication,) reverie, pointedly abandoning their research for several minutes at a time, and unwarranted (as far as he was aware) bellicose behavior, aimed specifically, it would seem, at him, even though he was never quite sure what he’d done to deserve it. It was all very disorientating, this hot-and-cold contrast in Abbie’s conduct, especially when he had always known her to be completely calm and collected, even in the most dangerous and terrifying of situations. And since she wouldn’t outright tell him what’d been bothering her, wouldn’t tell him what he’d done wrong by her so that he could go about correcting it, he had tried, desperately, to read her body language, but even _that_ was sending him mixed signals.

            Caught in her daydreams, sometimes, though rarely, Abbie’s body would unwillingly give her away, and Ichabod would take note of the subtle shifts in her demeanor with delicate precision…the flush in her cheeks whenever he’d called her by her full name (her _real_ name, Grace Abigail Mills, which he does rarely, as he still feels rather awkward and impolite calling her by anything but her proper title…much to his dismay, it appears to be one of the only tried and true ways to get her attention whenever it slips out of his grasp and Abbie falls into one of her daytime musings,) the way a shiver would run down her spine and light up her entire body like a live wire at a simple, accidental brush of skin against skin…the way she would stumble over her words whenever he’d caught her off-guard, the way she’d giggle and sigh whenever he would smile at her. And then, sometimes, he’d even catch her staring at him, looking longingly at the rise and fall of his chest, at the curve of his lips as he spoke, at the twist of his muscles, performing even the most ordinary of tasks, all the while unwittingly sending his heart into a frantic flutter (though he’d never admit to any such thing.)

            Were she any other woman, Ichabod would have no choice but to assume, by careful observation of her recent behavior, that she had somehow taken a liking to him…but this is Abbie we’re talking about, and Ichabod knows better than to presume that a woman like her could ever see a man like him in any way other than an unlikely friend, or, as it were, a trusted companion in the upcoming apocalypse. After all, they’re worlds apart, and he’s a disheveled mess of a man with a suffocating amount of emotional baggage and unresolved rage, not to mention the fact that he’s married. He should know better, and he’s foolish to think that, were he unwed, he’s actually got a chance with a woman like Abbie Mills. It’s alarming, really, how often he has to remind himself that he’s still married, to a powerful sorceress no less, and that nothing could ever happen between himself and the Lieutenant…and yet, that doesn’t seem to stop him from blurting out compliments left and right like he’s trying far too hard to woo her, reminding her that her aesthetic beauty rivals that of all other women, that she’s unendingly kind and brave and loyal and strong, that she possesses the singing voice of an angel…he hadn’t even tried this hard to win Katrina’s heart, but then…Abbie is much more of a challenge, and besides, it isn’t like any of what he’s said is untrue…he’s merely stating obvious facts. At least, that’s what he tells himself whenever he catches his mind wandering where it shouldn’t.

            Based on her behavior over the course of the past week alone, Ichabod would’ve been wise to assume that Abbie was starting to feel romantic affection for him, if only it didn’t switch to the polar opposite the moment he’d brought her back out of her head and into reality, into the present. Whenever he’d ripped her out of the world inside her head, she’d become nothing less than cold and cruel. And even now, even though it’s dwindled to significantly smaller amount of instances, there’s still something different about the way in which she holds herself…she’s constantly on edge, muscles wound tight with tension, more so than he’s ever seen of her…and it breaks his heart, the way her muscles tighten at the slightest movement he makes, the way she recoils from his touch like he’s suddenly become venomous, this disgusting thing that she no longer wants anything to do with.

            She won’t look him directly in the eye anymore, will hardly speak to him unless it’s strictly necessary, won’t confirm that something has gone terribly, terribly wrong within her, but Ichabod knows, in his heart, that something isn’t quite right. All of their playful teasing and lively banter is gone, and as he feels Abbie slipping away from, just like he’d feared would happen, just like it had with Katrina, it only makes him want to cling tighter to her. He’s walking on eggshells around her, and it’s left him utterly devastated. He tries his damnedest to make it up to her, to right whatever he’s done to upset her, because he can’t bear the thought of losing her trust, her company, her _everything_. And when he poses his simple questions, she tells him that she’s been losing sleep, that she’s stressed and worn out and preoccupied, and he knows deep down that she’s likely just worried about her sister, about the demon in the woods, about everything that’s coming for them, still mourning the loss of Corbin, the only man who’d ever felt like a father to her, but he also knows how to read her, knows that that can’t be all there is. She’s keeping something from him, and it’s troubling him to the point where he feels sick with worry. He resolves to figure it out, to keep trying, to keep prying and needling it out of her…the only thing that matters, above all else, is fixing Abbie.

            Until it isn’t. Until he’s lying on the forest floor, the heels of his leather boots digging into the graveyard dirt of Katrina’s tombstone, mud and leaves and blood and ashes strewn across his torn and tattered clothes, feral sobs ripping from his chest and his throat as Abbie waits in the distance, at a complete loss for what to do, because nothing that she could possibly say to him could make this any better, could fix this, could fix _him_ …he’s falling to pieces all over again, losing Katrina _all over again_ , for good this time, because he’d watched her soul pass through the veil and into the spirit world, never to return. He stays until there’s nothing left in him…no tears, no breath, no feeling of any kind, doesn’t even register the chilling numbness in his fingertips, until Abbie closes her soft, warm hands around his, wraps her jacket around his shoulders, and leads him to the car, the both of them cold and miserable and soaking wet from the violent downpour of rain and ice. He doesn’t register the details of the rest of that night, when Abbie takes him home and bundles him up in his bed, freeing him of his rain-soaked clothes…the only thing he registers, the only thing that tears him from his sorrow, right before he falls asleep, is the fact that, at the very least, he’s got his Abbie back, and he knows, now more than ever, that she isn’t ever going to leave him…not without a fight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoops I just killed off Katrina.


	12. Nightmares

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _You want a revelation / You want to get it right / But it’s a conversation / I just can’t have tonight / You want a revelation / Some kind of resolution / You want a revelation / No light, no light in your bright blue eyes / I never knew daylight could be so violent / A revelation in the light of day / You can’t choose what stays and what fades away / And I’d do anything to make you stay / No light, no light, no light / Tell me what you want me to say_ — **No Light, No Light • Florence And The Machine**

            And then come the nightmares, the ones that Abbie had thought she’d suppressed long ago, casting their curling, creeping, crude, and chilling smiles at her, like old, familiar faces she’d tried her damnedest to forget. And every time, it’s the same string of terrors…a twisting, leaf-strewn path in the woods, creatures swathed in shadows slinking behind the trunks of rotting trees, demons with blackened eyes and devil’s horns and skin the color of chalk, chasing her, pinning her to the ground, dragging her under the depths of the earth as she chokes on a mouthful of dirt…her vision blurring, blacking out, reawakening in a dark and desolate forest after days of unconsciousness…reliving the day she’d confessed she’d seen nothing out there in the woods, the day she’d betrayed the only person she’d ever truly cared for, and all of the hellish days in between, until that fateful night when she’d finally won her sister’s trust back…the black, lifeless, hollowed-out eye sockets of the sandman, boring into hers, his long, gray claws reaching out to touch her, to tear the skin clean off of her body, to rip her apart in the very same way that all of her locked-up lies and buried down guilt had done for years.

            Abbie wakes up screaming, her sheets a tangled mess, coiled around her body like shackles, as she cries out, “I’m sorry, I believe you…I saw it, too.” Before she can even register what’s going on, before she even has a moment to consider that it was _just another nightmare_ , Ichabod’s arms are encompassing her waist, tugging her to his chest and holding her close. Abbie gladly accepts, wrapping her arms around his shoulders, burying her face into the crook of his neck, and breathing in his warm, familiar scent. And when she starts to shake, trembling with fear-induced adrenaline, Ichabod rocks her back and forth in his arms, to a slow and steady rhythm, absentmindedly lacing his fingers through the strands of her hair, gently cradling her head in the palm of his hand. When he’s absolutely certain that she’s awake, certain that he’s effectively pulled her out of her night terror and back into reality, Crane carefully winds her arms around his neck and carries her to the living room couch. Gently depositing her into her preferred spot, Crane bundles her up in her fuzzy blanket, and then quickly disappears to the kitchen, returning no less than five minutes later with two massive mugs of hot cocoa, steaming and swirling with warm milk and powdered chocolate and a mountain of marshmallows topped off with cinnamon.

            Crane perches on the couch across from her and simply stares, not with a look of pity, but with one of concern, of sadness, and, if she’s not mistaken, fear. The minutes tick past as the two of them sit in a semi-uncomfortable silence, Crane with the worried, tight-lipped expression of a man who’d been kept in the dark for far too long, and Abbie just _knows_ that he’s waiting for her to break first, knows that she owes it to him to finally come clean (at least, about _some_ of the things that have been bothering her.) Tired of holding it all back and pretending like she’s fine, Abbie finally lets go, and the words come cascading out of her mouth in a flood of repressed emotions. Ichabod listens with polite sincerity as Abbie tells him all about her nightmares, the ones she’d been having ever since she was a little girl, the ones that had started with her father’s abandonment and her mother’s breakdown, and that had fractured off into nightmares about demons lurking in the woods, about Ro'kenhrontyes invading her dreams, even after she’d defeated him. She tells him about how she and Jenny had grown up with a bond that would make even the closest of siblings jealous, how they were all each other had, how they had clung to one another and stayed strong for one another even in the darkest of times, how even though she’d apologized over and over again, her betrayal still haunted her, how she wished, more than anything, that Jenny could be released and come live with her.

            At that, Ichabod stills, his fingertips coming to an abrupt halt where he’d been tracing indecipherable patterns on the back of Abbie’s hands, and tentatively mentions that he’ll undoubtedly have to start making arrangements to live somewhere else, when the time comes. And he knows, instantaneously, that it’s an extremely selfish thing to say, but Abbie only laughs, a deep, throaty chuckle that only graces his ears in the quiet hours of the early morning after an all-nighter in the archives, and for the first time, he can actually see, without her constant reminders, that she is truly and deeply exhausted. But instead of confirming his suspicions, Abbie merely shrugs, says, “I guess we’ll just have to find an apartment with three bedrooms, one for each of us, when the time comes,” and Ichabod fails to fight the smile that spreads across his lips, grateful that she’s thought to include him in her future plans, to let him stay as a semi-permanent fixture in her life; relieved, however egocentric the concern may seem, that she isn’t going to abandon him the moment she’s reunited with her _real_ family.

            Whether by force of consolation or the need to pay equal respect to Abbie’s honesty, Ichabod admits that he’s been having nightmares as well, tells her that he wakes, night after night, in a cold sweat, with regret and remorse embedded in his bones from dreams about the never-ending war, irony drenched in the ill-conceived concept that slaughtering innocent human beings would somehow aid in the pursuit of justice. Night after night, he relives that cruel day on the battlefield, the day of his death sentence, of his encounter with the headless horseman, his memory flashing back to the time they’d once been comrades, before Abraham’s jealousy and hatred from a tarnished sense of pride had overtaken him. Crane pauses momentarily, his lips twisting into a bittersweet smile as his mouth closes around the name of his late wife, and Abbie realizes, with a jolt to her heart, that this is the first time she’s seen Ichabod out of his room in nearly two weeks. Words dripping with melancholia, Crane tells her about his phantasmagorical correspondence with Katrina, how she’d come to him several times throughout the course of the past few months, crossing the veil of purgatory and invading his mind via blood ties and black magic, never to spare him any kindness or tender words, but only to tell him what impossible tasks he needed to undertake, fading away from him before he’d even had the chance to tell her how much he’d missed her.

            An apology, for having shut Abbie out for nearly a fortnight after their recent confrontation with Moloch, tumbles out of his mouth in haste. He apologizes for having barricaded himself within his bedroom, tells her that he’d hardly slept, hardly eaten, that he’d spent the vast majority of his time lying in his bed and staring up at the ceiling until his eyes ached from vigilant stillness. Abbie shakes her head, winds an arm around his waist and pulls him into a tight hug, tells him that she understands completely, that he’s got nothing to apologize for. Together, they talk through the battle they’d faced that night, how they’d tracked down the demon Moloch through his connection to Andy, how they’d managed to trap him for a few moments in time, enough to release Katrina’s soul from his grasp, to allow her passage from purgatory into the spirit world, and yet only enough for her to look back at her former husband with a bittersweet smile and tell him goodbye, before she’d disappeared in a flare of blinding light, leaving him behind in the land of the living. Ichabod swallows back a sob, the suffocating lump in his throat evident in every choked and broken word he utters.

            “Thank you,” he whispers, offering Abbie a small, strained smile. When she gives him a questioning glance in return, one eyebrow quirked in confusion as she asks, “What for?”, he tells her that this is the first time in a very long while that he has summoned the strength to talk about Katrina’s passing, and that there is no one he would trust more in this mortal world with his raw, honest emotions than Abbie. Merely speaking with Abbie again, regaining their once-lost discourse, is like a balm, lessening all of his pain and suffering, and finally admitting the fact that Katrina is gone, finally embracing her death, is oddly cathartic. Unwillingly, it would seem, Ichabod confesses that he feels different now, far removed from it all, as though he was born into a second life the day he’d awoken in this era, admits that everything from his old life had feels like a memory, like a dream…confesses that he’d been clinging onto his past, onto Katrina, with such an intensity, because he had thought that it was the honorable thing to do, to constantly remind himself that she was still very much a presence in his life, or at least that she _should_ still be, even in her death.

            For months, he kept telling himself that she was still alive, somehow, that it had all been a lie, that she’d never been burnt for witchcraft and would come back to him some day, even though he knew, in his heart, that her body had been destroyed, that there was no turning back for Katrina, that after she had made a deal with a demon and sold her soul in exchange for Ichabod’s life, that she had had no choice but to pass on, and that after two hundred and fifty years of imprisonment, truly, in even in his sorrow, he is grateful that she is finally at rest, and that he had been given the chance to rescue her, in his final act of honor and declaration of devotion for his beloved wife. In freeing her, he had freed himself. And, he confesses, in a voice so quiet she can barely make out the words, in this strange and terrifying new life that has befallen him, in everything that they have faced together thus far, Abbie has become his entire world, and in spite of the profusion of pain and suffering promised to both of them in this inevitable battle against the upcoming apocalypse, he wouldn’t sacrifice a single moment of it, if it meant losing her.

            Upon the close of this revelation, Ichabod offers Abbie a weak smile, extending his half-full mug of hot cocoa out to hers and clinking them together in cheers, before drowning the very last bit of it and retreating to the kitchen in order to make more. Abbie is quiet for a very long while, mind racing as she mulls over Crane’s confession, heart thundering in her ribcage at the prospect of having become the _everything_ in someone else’s life, at being so absolutely, irrevocably _needed_ …and Abbie realizes, with a startling jolt, that the weight of it scares her more than any demon or haunting betrayal ever could. Moments later, Ichabod returns, perching along the opposite end of the couch and cradling a mug of freshly brewed hot chocolate in between the palms of his hands. With a contented sigh, Ichabod burrows his face into its warmth, hovers just above the lip of the mug and lets the steam collect along the fine threads of his facial hair in tiny water droplets.

            The two of them sink into a comfortable silence that lasts well into the early hours of the morning, until Abbie finally finds the resolve to drag herself up from the comfort of the couch, from the comfort of Crane’s company, to try and salvage some sleep from the last few hours of the night. She retreats to her bedroom, thanking him a thousand times over and assuring him that she’ll be just fine, but he can tell, by the downward curve of her lips and the worry dancing in her eyes, that what he had confessed had struck a definite nerve, and he wonders, for a brief moment, if he made a mistake in revealing something so personal, if he should have just said nothing at all. But, he reflects, it was the only that he could truly express his gratitude, the only way that he could tell her how much she means to him, without coming across as a pining fool. What he hadn’t told her, what he’ll likely _never_ tell her, is the fact that not all of his nighttime musings had been nightmares. In fact, for weeks now, he’d been experiencing the strangest of dreams, all of which had featured _her_.

            Moments before sleep overtakes him, Ichabod allows himself to indulge in the memories of his most recent dreams. Overall, they’d been harmless…dreams of just the two of them, sitting together upon her couch, sharing stories and laughter while the television played at a soft lull in the background, evenings that had marked some of the happiest moments of his life, in spite of all of the horrors they’d faced. But then, sometimes, his subconscious would wander well past the border of possibility, and the two of them would be thrust into all manner of romantic entanglements…visions of his gaze lingering longingly upon hers, his hands combing through her hair, tracing the curve of her lips before leaning in and kissing her sweetly, switching out the nightlight beside their shared bed and curling into her, holding her close as he fell asleep, only to wake to her gentle embrace the next morning.

            Before he can stop himself, his mind starts to wander into the forbidden territory of the more intimate, chimerical scenarios that his subconscious had maliciously concocted, and he immediately attempts to casts them away, a furious blush swimming across his cheeks at the image of Abbie’s soft, full lips brushing against his, tugging lightly at his lower lip with her teeth as she presses him into the mattress, eyes fluttering closed in response to Ichabod’s dedication to every pleasure point on her body, making love to her with slow, thorough, perfect precision, the mere notion of which evokes a long, low groan from the depths of his throat at the recollected memory of Abbie’s soft, sweet moaning. It hardly seems fair that a single sound made under relatively innocent circumstances, like lying in a pile of warm laundry upon his bed, or sipping a freshly-brewed cup of coffee, could affect him so potently. Ichabod bolts up in bed, his heart hammering in his chest, head sinking into the palms of his hands in mortification and self-disgust as the realization of what he’s doing, and how utterly wrong it is, dawns on him…because _this_ is the worst kind of betrayal, the worst level of disrespect, to his beloved, late wife. It _can’t_ , and it _won’t_ , happen ever again. Ichabod repeats it in his mind like a mantra, until he finally succumbs to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this series has become slightly AU, in that I’m altering/ignoring a few details from canon. (1) Originally, I remember Abbie saying that it could take six months for Jenny to be released, so for the purpose of this fic, Jenny hasn’t been released just yet, and is therefore not living with Abbie. (2) Even though she’s apologized and more than made up for it, Abbie still feels guilty about her betrayal, still has nightmares about the demon in the woods. (3) I’m altering the details of how and why Katrina ended up in purgatory, because of reasons. (4) I’m also ignoring the whole “Ichabod and Katrina had a secret magical son called Jeremy” subplot, in order to make Katrina’s passing a little less complicated, and Ichabod’s transition and healing period a little more believable.
> 
> Also, I think I might've accidentally made Abbie and Ichabod about as co-dependent as the Winchester brothers. I'm not even sorry.


	13. Christmas Cookies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: After two chapters of pure angst, this one is basically just a big pile of schmoopy, saccharine, Christmasy domestic fluff in comparison. Seriously...read this, and you're guaranteed instant diabetes.
> 
> Happy Holidays, everyone :D

            Abbie slides a massive red-and-white-striped mug, filled to the brim with hot cocoa, across the kitchen counter and into Crane’s hands. He makes an eager grab for it, staring hungrily at the rising spirals of steam, but Abbie stops him, wrapping a hand around his to hold him still as she tops it off with a generous swirl of whipped cream, a handful of marshmallows, and a sprinkling of crushed candy canes. Crane stares at the sugary concoction with a curious smile and a quirk of his eyebrow.

            “Go on, try it,” she prompts, nudging him in the ribcage with the tip of her finger. Ichabod obeys, taking a long, slow sip, humming in pleasure, and then nodding toward Abbie.

            “This is oddly delightful,” he mumbles, mouth still hovering over the lip of his mug. “I never would have thought to pair peppermint and chocolate, but it would seem that I have once again been proven wrong by this century’s concepts of delectable confections.”

            “Thank you,” he adds quietly, after a second sip.

            A soft, warm smile spreads across Abbie’s lips as her eyes rove the length of her apartment, all dolled up in festive decorations, strings of multi-colored icicle lights hanging above the window frames and draped along the sides of the curtains; a small wreath, adorned with holly berries, little red bows, and tiny golden bells, hanging on their front door; snow-covered angelic figurines lining the mantle above her faux fireplace. Inspired by the glow of Sleepy Hollow’s streetlamps, embellished with faerie lights, ornamental snowflakes, and tiny garnished pine trees, Crane had insisted on decorating their apartment for Christmas, just as they had done for Halloween. And of course, Abbie had indulged him, hoping that it would help take his mind off his more recent troubles. It’s Christmas, after all…a time to let go and have a bit of fun, only if for a night.

            As promised, a few days prior, Abbie had taken Crane Christmas shopping, where they’d purchased all manner of tasteful decorations. They’d even gotten a last-minute Christmas tree…a small, misshapen little thing that had lost quite a bit of its foliage as they’d carried it out to Abbie’s Jeep, Crane complaining about pine needle pricks and pokes all along the way. At first, he’d been rather perplexed about the whole ordeal, found the notion of cutting down an evergreen tree and hauling it into one’s home to stand as a decorative holiday piece to be utterly absurd…still, that didn’t seem to quell his excitement, nor deter him from lavishing their little tree with brightly-colored lights, baubles, ornaments, and silver strings of tinsel, determined to celebrate properly, in compliance with this century’s modifications on such a traditional holiday. Abbie had tried her hardest to stop him from buying candy canes, though, given his addictive habits, but he’d snuck about five boxes of them into their shopping cart anyway, and Abbie hadn’t noticed until it was too late, until they had already been hung on nearly every branch of their Christmas tree.

            She’d caught him, well more than once, eyeing them up and sneaking them off of their branches, deciding that he would rather eat them than let such delicious decorations go to waste. With a mischievous smirk, he’d tucked them behind his back, one by one, feigning innocence when she’d fixed him with a playful scowl, and then popped them into his mouth when he’d thought she wasn’t looking. Smiling at the memory, her eyes dart back to Crane, and Abbie can’t help but burst into laughter at the chocolate and cream moustache coating his facial hair. Abbie sighs, eyes shamelessly following the delicate curve of his tongue as Crane proceeds to lick it all off. _It’s Christmas. This is supposed to be a nice, family holiday, so keep it PG, Mills,_ Abbie scolds herself, putting an immediate stop to that particular train of thought.

            “You’re welcome,” she says, taking a sip of her hot cocoa. “It’s Christmas…not having some kind of sugary, peppermint-flavored _something_ is just wrong.”

            “I couldn’t agree with you more,” he says, sporting a cheeky grin as he pulls a candy cane from his back pocket, peels back the wrapper, and dips it into his hot cocoa.

            “Come on, you crazy candy addict,” she says, rolling her eyes and chuckling softly. “Over to my side of the island…we’re making Christmas cookies.”

            Ichabod’s eyes light up immediately and he all but sprints to Abbie’s side. Normally, Abbie didn’t have the time or the drive to bake cookies, let alone decorate and actively celebrate Christmas, but this year, _just for Crane_ , she’d gone all-out, gotten the whole delicious spread. Laid out before them is an impressive collection of cookie dough rolls: chocolate chip, gingerbread, peanut butter, and sugar cookie, as well as an assortment of sprinkles, icing, and cookie cutters shaped like Christmas film characters. Crane takes to the task of preparing them with great enthusiasm, rolling up his sleeves and unwrapping every single cookie roll at once. Before he gets his hands dirty, Crane reaches for his slowly-melting candy cane and slips it in between his lips, sinfully twisting and tonguing it, leaving it poking out of the corner of his mouth while he works, and _god, does he have any idea how suggestive that is?_

            Abbie’s dreams may have come to an abrupt halt shortly after the death of Katrina, but that still didn’t stop her from eyeing up the witch’s former husband while his soft, strong hands worked to roll the dough flat, kneading it with perfect precision. He stands quite close to her, so close that they continually brush arms and bump elbows, and while the kitchen island is certainly big enough for the both of them, neither of them seem to be able to find the will to move. Together, they stamp out festive-shaped dough with the cookie cutters, Crane talking animatedly about Christmas traditions from his era, punctuating his words with tiny little crunches of peppermint candy. When he asks, Abbie lets him eat a little bit of the raw cookie dough, but only the remaining bits that hadn’t made it to the cookie sheet, lest they have nothing left to bake into actual, proper cookies.

            Crane follows Abbie into the living room, badgering her about how long it will take for the cookies to bake all the way through. Abbie playfully shushes him, digs her iPod out of her purse, and plugs it into its little speaker dock, scrolling through her collection of Christmas themed songs until she’s complied the perfect makeshift playlist, and flops down onto the couch, nursing her hot cocoa. Crane mirrors her, setting his mug upon the coffee table and nodding along to the music, raising his fingers to mime conducting an invisible orchestra. And then, without warning or pause for consideration, Crane launches himself off the couch and bows in front of Abbie, his hand extended to hers. For a moment, Abbie feels like she’s back in middle school, getting asked to dance by her sixth-grade crush, and all of the butterflies and nervous jitters in her stomach nod their agreement. Abbie shakes her head, laughing at him as she pushes him away, telling him that she doesn’t dance…at least, not like he’d want her to.

            “Oh come on,” he says, a mischievous twinkle to his eye. “Indulge a hopeful old military man.”

            Abbie pauses, sucks her lower lip into her mouth to keep from smiling, and then places her hand in his, allowing herself to get whisked from her seat and pulled into his embrace. Ichabod winds one of his arms around her waist, laces his fingers with hers, and nods his approval when she tentatively positions her other hand along his shoulder. They stand far enough apart that they aren’t quite touching, and Ichabod’s eyes never leave hers, leading her in a slow and steady rhythm.

            “One, two, three,” Ichabod says, more to himself than to her, repeating it over and over under his breath until Abbie is following his steps.

            “This is called a waltz,” he says, offering her a bright smile that, for the first time in weeks, actually reaches his eyes. “But I’m almost certain you already knew that, given how popular of a dance it was, well before I ever came to learn it.”

            He dances like it’s as easy as breathing, like it’s second nature to him, and Abbie wonders just how regal his upbringing truly was, stumbling along and trying to keep up with him as he quickens their pace, mirroring the beat of their current song, not even realizing that he’d accidentally moved in closer to her, so close that their chests are nearly pressed up against one another’s. Thankfully, soon after, her iPod chooses a soft, slow, jazz number, and Abbie takes the opportunity to lean forward and rest her head against his shoulder, sighing and drinking in his warm, comforting scent. Without even thinking about it, Abbie glides her arm up the length of his shoulder and weaves her fingers through the soft hair at the back of his neck, and Ichabod honest-to-god _shivers_ at her touch. Abbie bites her lower lip to stave off a wicked grin as she pulls back and catches sight of his inquisitive stare.

            “You’re very good at this,” she says, in an effort to distract him further.

            “Much obliged, Miss Mills. Years of practice make for graceful moves,” he replies smoothly, and then adds, “You’re a very quick learner.”

            “Well, I learned from the best,” she says, giving his hand an affectionate squeeze as they waltz toward the window. A thin layer of frost skates labyrinthine patterns across the glass, veiling the view of their sleepy little town, blanketed in freshly-fallen snow, with the exception of a small circular patch in the center that throws the world outside into a snow globe’s view from their makeshift dance floor. Tipping her head slightly backward to get a better look, Abbie feels something thin and pointy poking into her hair. Disengaging the arm around Crane’s shoulder, she quickly pulls it out and examines it in the palm of her hand: a small, curved, dark green leaf, with a single white berry hanging from a stem. Abbie looks up, only to find an entire branch of the very same plant, wrapped in a lacey red ribbon and hanging by a golden string from the low-leveled portion of the ceiling.

            Mistletoe. _Huh_. Abbie doesn’t recall ever having hung it up there, let alone having even thought to buy it. Feigning curiosity, Crane lifts his head too, staring at the little plant with comically wide eyes, his flummoxed expression so seemingly genuine that he very nearly convinces Abbie that it wasn’t premeditated. Crane purses his lips, tucks his finger underneath Abbie’s chin and gently raises it until she has no choice but to meet his gaze, giving her an innocent look that says, _Oh, this? This happened completely by accident. Entirely coincidental._ Abbie sighs, a nervous giggle escaping her lips as she stares back at him. _It’s tradition_ , she tells herself. _Katrina can’t fault her for giving into Crane’s holiday-inspired whims._ Crane’s hand slides from her chin to her cheekbone in one fluid sweep, smoothing his thumb along the side of her face, and Abbie feels her eyelids flutter closed of their own accord.

            And then, simultaneously, they’re both leaning in, lips a mere thread from one another’s, Abbie’s arms encircling his shoulders as his find her waist…when the oven timer sounds, loud and intrusive, indicating that their cookies have finally finished baking. It’s as if both of them are pulled from a trance, coming to their senses and immediately backing away from one another, sheepish smiles taking the place of pouted lips. Abbie is the first to break away, retreating to the kitchen to pull the pan from the oven, with Ichabod following closely on her heels, quietly cursing himself (and the oven timer) for having been so bold. Neither of them speak, hardly even look at one another, while they wait for what seems like ages for the cookies to cool, before scooping them up into festive circular tins, refilling their mugs with hot cocoa, and retreating back to the living room. They settle onto the couch opposite one another, stealing cookies from the tins and dipping them into their drinks, while Abbie’s Christmas themed music plays at a soft lull in the background.

            “Oh, before I forget,” Abbie says around a mouthful of frosted gingerbread cookie, finally breaking the uncomfortable silence between them and reaching into a small compartment of her purse. “I sort of got you something for Christmas.”

            She pulls out a small, wrapped box and hands it to Crane.

            “Oh, you really shouldn’t have done,” he says, looking genuinely surprised as he accepts the box. “I’m afraid I cannot reciprocate, seeing as I did not think to get you anything. Christmas wasn’t quite so commercialized and contingent upon gift-giving in my era.”

            “It’s fine, Crane…it’s nothing, really…just something I thought you should have,” she says. Crane quirks an eyebrow, carefully unwrapping the red and green striped paper and opening the box, only to reveal a small, silver key.

            “What does this go to?” he asks, and Abbie offers him a small, amused smile.

            “It’s a key to the apartment… to _our_ apartment. I thought you should have your own, seeing as you’ve lived her for a couple of months now,” she says, shrugging like it’s nothing, but Crane is absolutely touched, so much so that he closes the space between them and pulls her into a tight hug, holding onto her for a few seconds longer than is truly necessary.

            “Thank you,” he manages, pulling back slowly.

            “Really, it’s nothing,” she laughs, reaching behind the back of the couch and presenting Crane with another, partially wrapped gift: a tall, glass bottle the color of darkened honey, with a big red tawdry bow affixed on top.

            “Now, _this_ , though, _is_ something. So, you can feel free to spoil me with gratitude for this one,” she laughs, handing him a bottle of Barbadian Best Amber, his favorite brand of rum. Ichabod’s eyes light up as he graciously accepts the bottle, unscrewing the cap and pouring generous portions into both of their empty cocoa mugs.

            “Thank you, Abbie,” he says softly, clinking his mug against hers in cheers, and Abbie can’t help but smile at the sound of her name on his lips. “I truly appreciate everything you’ve done for me.”

            “You’re quite welcome, Ichabod,” she replies, sinking comfortably into the cushion on her side of the couch. When her playlist reaches its end, Abbie switches the television on, flipping through a few channels at a time so that Crane can sample a wide variety of Christmas films, while they quietly sip their rum and devour two tins of cookies.

            “Okay, I’m officially done…I can’t even _look_ at another cookie without feeling sick,” Abbie says after a while, clutching at her stomach and groaning while Crane nods in agreement. “I’m gonna go put these away…maybe clean up a little bit in the kitchen so that there isn’t a huge mess of it for tomorrow.”

            “I would be happy to help,” Crane says, standing up a bit too fast and swaying on the spot, clutching at the back of the couch for support as he blinks several times, steadying himself. Two hundred and fifty years must’ve turned Valley Forge’s rummed-up soldier into a lightweight.

            “It’s fine,” she giggles, the warmth of the rum spreading through her veins, making her giddy. “You just stay here, and I’ll be right back. Pick something good for us to watch, okay?”

            Crane raises his refilled mug and tilts it toward her in salute, while Abbie rolls her eyes and retreats to the kitchen. No less than five minutes later, Abbie hears an orchestral cadence of cellos, French Horns, harps, and woodwinds emanating from her living room. Crane had always liked the classics, had in fact preferred them to the majority of Abbie’s choice in music, and had all but pleaded with her to download more of Beethoven’s Cello Sonatas, Symphonies, and String Quartets, and Chopin’s Nocturnes and Impromptus to add to her steadily growing collection. Tonight, though, Abbie catches him swaying along to the rhythm of the _Waltz of the Flowers_ , from Tchaikovsky’s _Nutcracker Suite_. Abbie can’t help but follow this every move as she stands in the doorframe, giggling at the way his gangly limbs rise and fall in time to the music. At the sound of her laughter, Crane spins around, smiling like an idiot as he offers her an open palm, beckoning her to join him.

            “I found this lovely little number on your musical device and thought it sounded rather Christmasy. I do hope you don’t mind, but I’d much rather listen to music than watch television at the moment,” he says, bending at the waist to snatch his mug off the coffee table and take another hearty swig, his hand still extended toward hers.

            “Oh, what the hell,” Abbie sighs, rolling her eyes and stealing Crane’s mug, draining the rum in one gulp before he can even protest, before placing her hand in his and letting him lead their unscripted dance routine. The two of them spend the rest of the evening dancing along like drunken fools to Abbie’s eclectic collection of music, and Crane doesn’t even hesitate when Abbie’s iPod shuffles to a fast-paced pop song. He just keeps dancing, trying his hardest to imitate modern moves he’d seen in some of the movies and shows she’d shown him, and Abbie can’t help but chuckle at his failed attempts. They end up making a game out of it: taking sips of rum straight from the bottle every time one of them manages to make the other laugh. They dance until they’re tired out, properly drunk and disorderly, collapsing on the couch in a fit of giggles and contented sighs, and settling into a soft lull of sleepy laughter and the background chimes of classic Christmas films, until they eventually fall asleep, cuddled up under a cozy fort of blankets and pillows.


	14. New Year's Eve

The week in between Christmas and New Year’s Eve rushes past in a flurry of snowstorms and strange phone calls, and come Tuesday evening, after five days straight of investigating supposed supernatural sightings and alleged hauntings that, nine times out of ten, turned out to be the mad ravings of Sleepy Hollow’s overly-paranoid villagers merely imagining things as a result of random power outages, Abbie and Ichabod are absolutely _exhausted_. While most of her co-workers, save for those on the night watch, have already left for the evening, Abbie, ever dedicated to her post, is _still_ hunched over her work desk, writing out a tedious, extensive report, while Crane perches in a swivel chair pulled up beside her, his normally impeccable posture a perfect impression of hers, with the side of his cheek smushed against the faux wooden surface, and his arms sprawled out in front of him as he dallies with the random assortment of pens, paper clips, and staplers scattered across Abbie’s desk in an attempt to stave off his boredom.

            It’s nearly six o’clock when Luke Morales strolls through the main office, suit jacket and silken tie casually slung over his shoulder as he whistles a whimsical version of _Auld Lang Syne,_ and comes to an abrupt halt in front of Abbie’s cubicle.

            “So, Abbie,” he says smoothly, sliding his fingertips across the surface of her desk before plucking the twirling pencil out of Ichabod’s hands and placing it back in its holder. “Have any plans for tonight?”

            “Yup,” she quips, popping the _p_ as she licks the tip of her pointer finger and flips over another completed page, barely even registering the detective’s presence at her side. “Got a hot date with this giant stack of paperwork here.”

            Luke lets out an amused chuckle, presses his palms flat against the top of her desk, and leans in close, his face mere inches from hers, breath curling into her hair.

            “Well, if you decide to stand him up, and I sincerely hope you do…I’m having a party at my place tonight. I trust you remember where that is?” he asks, his voice low and throaty, knowing full well that it never fails to get a rise out of her. With that last, teasing line, Luke gives Crane a surreptitious wink, only to be met with a dramatic eye roll in riposte. Abbie turns toward him, huffing out a laugh as she fixes him with an impatient, appraising stare, and Luke rolls his eyes, dropping the flirtatious façade.

            “And, I guess…you’re welcome to bring your British bodyguard, if you want,” Luke sighs, pulling away from Abbie’s personal space and offering Crane a forced smile.

            “Seriously, though, do you ever get tired of this guy constantly hovering around you? He literally _never_ leaves your side,” Luke adds in a mocked murmur, curving a hand over the side of his mouth under the pretense of trying to shield his teasing jabs from Crane, though it’s obvious, from Crane’s sudden uncomfortable stance, that he’d heard every word. Abbie is about to protest, to verbally rip Morales a new one for constantly insulting her work partner, but Crane beats her to the punch.

            “Though your invitation is _graciously_ appreciated, Detective, I must, with immense regret, decline. As the Lieutenant has already stated, we have quite a bit of investigative paperwork that begs our attention this evening, and we may well be engaged for several hours,” Ichabod lilts, each word dripping with sarcasm and cheeky condescension. Abbie bites her lower lip to keep from laughing, eyebrows raised so high they’ve all but disappeared behind her long, layered bangs. Abbie glances back and forth between both boys, their eyes locked upon one another in an all-out battle of thinly veiled sass and murderous glares.

            “Thanks, Luke,” she says, cutting into their territory-marking, ruler-measuring catfight before either of them can hurl another insult. “But we’re good here.”

            “All right,” Luke says, raising his hands in pseudo surrender. “Well, if you change your mind, you know where to find me. Party starts at nine. Oh, and good luck with your paperwork. Don’t have _too_ much fun, now…then again, given your current company, I’m not all that worried.”

            With one last fleeting glance spared toward Abbie and a playful smirk shot toward Crane, Luke turns on his heel and retreats, before Ichabod even has the chance to form a reply. The moment the front doors click shut, Crane fixes Abbie with an incredulous stare, one eyebrow arched, expectant. Abbie rolls her eyes and launches into a hasty explanation.

            “Okay, look, just…don’t take anything he says seriously, all right? Ever since he and I broke up, it’s just been…I don’t know, _weird_. He sees you as a threat, as competition. He’s acting out of jealousy, that’s all. He’ll get over it, and this’ll all blow over soon enough,” Abbie sighs, hoping like hell that it’s enough to quell his irritation, because she is _so_ not in the mood to talk about her ex. Not now, not ever. But, as her never-ending supply of bad luck would have it, Crane _is_.

            “Whatever reason would Detective Morales have to be jealous of me?” Ichabod asks, his head tilted to the side in confusion.

            “I don’t know, Crane,” she says, shaking her head in chagrin. “I mean, I guess it’s probably because we live together, and we work a lot of cases together, and we _do_ spend an awful lot of time around each other…people tend to assume certain things.”

            “I don’t understand…is that supposed to mean something?” he presses, intrigued.

            “Well, _no_ , I guess not…but most people, particularly jealous exes, would probably assume that something is going on between us,” she huffs, her words rushed and harried, wishing that they could change the subject to something, _anything_ else.

            “Something like _what_?” he urges.

            Nope. Guess not. Abbie rolls her eyes and heaves a melodramatic sigh.

            “Like a _romantic_ _something_ ,” she says. “Dating…or, c _ourting_ …whatever you want to call it. That kind of thing.”

            “Oh.”

            Crane is silent for a few moments, and Abbie takes the opportunity of broken conversation to look away from him…picks up the pencil he’d been playing with earlier and starts to twirl it in between her fingertips, tapping the worn-down eraser on their remaining pile of paperwork.

            “Well, I suppose he needn’t worry, then,” Crane replies quietly, almost under his breath, the tiniest hint of despondency and regret lacing his words. Abbie isn’t quite sure how to respond, so she just says nothing, and turns her attention back to her paperwork. Quarter of seven rolls around, bringing Frank Irving through the main office in a heated rush, car keys jingling in one hand, the other hovering over the light switch, before he spots the two of them, crowded around her desk, heads lowered and voices hushed. Crane and Mills…as always, the last two to leave the office. He wonders, for a brief flicker of a moment, what they get up to after hours, when most of the staff have gone home, and then thinks better of it, shuddering in disgust at the very notion. The way those two look at each other, though…stolen glances and puppydog eyes and all of that sickeningly adorable romantic crap…he honestly wouldn’t even be surprised. _Ugh. Gross._

            “Haven’t you two worked enough overtime this week?” he asks, pausing in front of their shared desk. He should probably consider getting Crane his own, eventually, since it doesn’t look like he’ll be shipping back off to England any time soon. Should probably start _paying_ him, too.

            “Just finishing up some paperwork, sir,” Abbie replies, straightening the ruffled stack.

            “On New Year’s Eve?” the captain scoffs. “Come on, live a little. Tell you what, the world isn’t going to end if this paperwork doesn’t make it to my desk until tomorrow night.”

            “You sure about that?” Abbie teases with a small curve of her lips.

            “Bet my head on it,” he jokes. “Really, though, take the night off, both of you. After the week you’ve had, you deserve it. Just…don’t drink _too_ much, okay? Trust me, you don’t need a hangover headache _on top_ of me bitching at you,” he laughs, loosening his tie as he walks out the front door, waving a hand behind his back in farewell. Crane turns toward Abbie, a curious gleam in his eye.

            “Lieutenant,” he poses. “What is all of this talk I keep hearing about parties and drinking? Is this customary behavior on the final eve of the year’s end?”

            “Well, _yeah_ ,” she says, a little taken aback by his ignorance. “I mean, sort of. Some people go all out, throw parties, get a little too drunk, find someone to kiss at midnight. Other people…people like me, just like to stay home with a bottle of wine and watch the ball drop.”

            “I’m not sure I quite understand…when you say _ball_ …” he starts.

            “I mean a literal ball…it’s a New York tradition, broadcasted on television for the entire country to watch. They put this big, sparkly, lit-up sphere up on a lifting gear in Times Square and slowly drop it during the final countdown to the New Year. And then, at midnight, there’re fireworks and confetti and glitter and streamers and balloons raining down from the sky, and it’s…I don’t know why they do it, really, but it’s kind of cool to watch. It can be really fun, New Year’s Eve, if you’ve got someone to celebrate it with,” she says, sounding nostalgic, and just a tiny bit disappointed that she’ll have to miss it. Crane cocks his head to the side, the cogs in his brain churning out a wonderful idea.

            “And now you have. Come then, we haven’t any time to waste,” he says, rising from his chair and extending his hand toward Abbie.

            “Crane, what exactly are you suggesting?” Abbie asks, hesitant.

            “I am suggesting that you accompany me for a _night on the town_ , as several of your era’s films would put it. I tire of our workload…I daresay we have had more than our fair share of it this past week. Let us go and celebrate the end of this year,” he says, smiling brightly.

            Abbie laughs, glances back and forth between the dwindling pile of paperwork and Crane’s eager expression, and within seconds, her mind is made up. With a playful roll of her eyes, Abbie places her hand in his and allows herself to get whisked out of her chair and pulled toward the front doors, laughing as Crane links his arm in hers and tugs them toward her car. When they get home, the two of them retreat to their respective bedrooms, quickly changing out of their work clothes and into something a bit more comfortable, more festive. Abbie dithers about in her closet for a good fifteen minutes, trying on dress after slinky red dress, before remembering that it’s the end of December, _on the east coast_ , and she’ll likely freeze no less than two minutes after leaving her apartment. Instead, she opts for a stylish and cozy combo of snow boots, jeans, and a sweater, and when she comes out of her room and spots Crane leaning against the kitchen door, all dressed up in his jacket, patiently awaiting her, she’s pleased to find that he has, too.

            Their _night on the town_ is a lot less formal than Abbie would have expected, and for that, she’s grateful. They end up parking Abbie’s car in a local lot and walking into town, through the village’s lantern-lit lanes, faerie lights and garnished wreaths coiled around nearly every street lamp they pass, admiring Christmas decorations left up by their neighbors, by those stubbornly clinging to the enveloping warmth of the holiday season until the very last day of the year. A light flurry of snow falls from the sky, weaving into the strands of their hair and settling like miniature diamonds onto the fabric of their bundled-up coats. They walk the town until Abbie can’t feel her fingers anymore, removed from the digits of her gloves and balled into her palms for a chance at warmth.

            “Lieutenant, what time have you got?”Crane asks suddenly, teeth chattering, gloveless hands stuffed into his coat pockets. Abbie reluctantly reaches into her purse and pulls out her phone.

            “Half past nine…why do you ask?”

            “Oh,” he says, unable to hold back a smug smile. “It would appear that we have missed Detective Morales’ social gathering.”

            “Oh,” Abbie says, mimicking his smile. “What a shame. I totally wanted to go to that.”

            “You did?” he asks, stopping briefly in his tracks.

            “It’s called _sarcasm_ , Crane…keep up,” she teases. Crane lets out a nervous chuckle.

            On the way back to Abbie’s car, far too cold to function, the two of them pop into one of the only open shops in the village. Of course, to no one’s surprise, it’s a liquor store. Abbie and Ichabod circle the shelves, pointing out their favorite drinks while they wait for their fingers and toes and the tips of their noses to thaw out. Abbie pauses in front of a row of lavish champagne brands, eyeing them up in appraisal before finally selecting the tall, long-necked, emerald glass bottle with the golden seal and the elegant scrawl.

            “Lieutenant,” Crane questions as she sets it down on the counter and waits for the cashier to finish re-stocking the vodka section. “What are you doing?”

            “What does it _look_ like I’m doing?” she laughs, waving off his concern. “Champagne is an integral part of New Year’s Eve. It’s been a long time since I had anyone to celebrate the holidays with, so I’m going all out, getting the good stuff. I’m being _festive_.”

            Crane nods, giving her a delighted smile as he plucks two pairs of plastic glasses whose frames have been molded into the shape of 2014, as well as two sets of silver and gold deeley boppers from the impulse shelf, and places then down on the counter, dividing their purchases with a plastic marker.

            “Then I shall join in the festivities,” he says, eyes wide with conviction as Abbie laughs and fixes him with an _are you serious?_ stare. “Costumes and decorations are on me.”

            Arms laced with shopping bags, Abbie and Ichabod head from the shop to her car, parked only a few meters away. Before leaving the shop, Ichabod insists on wearing his holiday deeley boppers, and Abbie can’t help but laugh every time he nods vigorously in response to a question, purposely walking with an animated bounce to his step. Shrugging off their snow-strewn jackets and boots by the kitchen doorway, the two of them settle onto the couch, shivering under a pile of blankets and pillows, clutching Abbie’s fancy, _special-occasion-only_ glasses, filled to the brim with sparkling, citrine champagne. With the help of leftover Christmas cookies and holiday specials of their favorite shows, Abbie and Ichabod warm up almost instantly (though Abbie assigns partial credit to the steady flow of alcohol swimming through her veins.) At twenty minutes to midnight, Abbie switches over to the channel broadcasting the annual Times Square Ball Drop, and leaves the report, along with the sweeping view of thousands of cheering Americans, all dressed up in glitter and ridiculous hats, on in the background.

            “And all of those people…are they there in Times Square currently, like a news broadcast, or has this all been pre-recorded?” Ichabod asks, leaning toward Abbie and nearly spilling his champagne all over the blanket. Abbie grabs his wrist and tilts his glass upright, unconsciously moving closer toward him.

            “Nope, it’s live…always has been, always will be,” she replies.

            “And do you wish you were there, among the masses?” he asks.

            “Nah, not really,” she sighs, curling into Crane’s side and tucking her glass of champagne to her chest. For once, without hesitation, Crane lifts his arm to accommodate her, and carefully drapes it across her waist, overtop their shared bundle of blankets. “I mean, would it be fun, being there and seeing it all in person? _Sure_. But all in all, I prefer being home. It’s warmer, and less crowded, and when it gets too loud, I can just shut off the TV.”

            Crane nods in agreement, takes a small sip from his third glass of champagne, and then purses his lips, willing his brain to cooperate with his mouth.

            “And, if I may be so bold as to ask…would you prefer being in the company of a certain detective, rather than in mine?” he poses, a seemingly innocent lilt to his voice. Ichabod hopes that he’s managed to play it off as mere curiosity, rather than as an attempt to gauge Abbie’s affections. He knows that it’s stupid and foolish, the moment the query leaves his lips, and he feels ashamed for having put her in a position of having to choose between the two of them, treating her like she’s a prize to be won in their clandestine, puerile competition, rather than as a person who may very well not want anything to do with either of them. Thankfully, Abbie doesn’t seem to notice his true intentions, the way he waits on bated breath for her reply, and instead takes his inquiry at face value.

            “Definitely not,” she says, huffing out a breath that’s a cross between irritation and amusement, before downing the last of her champagne. “And, _look_ , I know you’re only asking because you’re just trying to look out for me, and I get it, I do…it’s really sweet, and I appreciate your concern, but I don’t think I should need to remind you that I’m a big girl, Crane…I can take care of myself…and I can _definitely_ handle anything Luke throws my way…even stupid little jealous jabs at _you_ , because he’s too damn stubborn and prideful to just come right out and _ask me_ if you and I are together.”

            “Apologies, Lieutenant, I did not mean to offend. I am well aware of your personal strengths. Forgive me, it was forward, but I was merely curious, and, well…I do not wish to be in the way of your potential romantic rekindling,” he admits quietly.

            At this revelation, Abbie can’t help but laugh, nearly spilling the contents of the bottle all over the coffee table as she pours herself another glass of champagne.

            “Trust me, that ship has _sailed_. I have no intention of getting back together with Luke. And besides, I like my company tonight just fine,” she says, snuggling back into Crane’s side. Crane bites back a delighted smile, clinking his half-full glass against hers in cheers as they settle in to watch the final countdown.

_Ten. Nine._

            Abbie lifts her head ever so slightly to peer up at Crane through a pair of sleepy, heavy-lidded eyes, catches the brilliant smile that dances across his lips, the one that lights up his eyes in a way she hasn’t seen from him in days…not since Christmas, and not for several weeks before that night…a smile that, it seems, only Abbie can ever bring him now, and no doubt in response to what she’d just told him. It’s amazing, really, now that she thinks about it, how easy it is for her to make him smile, and vice versa. It’s amazing how often that seems to happen, even after everything they’ve gone through together.

_Eight. Seven._

She’d never quite registered the self-satisfied little smirk that follows in the wake of her laughter, the one that he wears each and every time he’d managed to make her smile. She’d never put two and two together, until now.

            _Six. Five._

It’s amazing how well he’s come to know her, down to the very last detail and idiosyncrasy, even after only a few months of living in her presence. How, when others, mainly past lovers, had made it a seemingly impossible task to even remember how she takes her coffee in the morning, Crane had memorized the method in under a day, and continues to do prepare it for her, expecting nothing but a small dose of gratitude in return. How, when she speaks, unlike so many others, Crane actually listens, and can recall, with perfect clarity, everything she had just told him. How, even though they’re two lonely, would-be strangers, worlds and eras and ages apart, thrown together in this mad, impossible war against the depths of hell, they’ve still managed to find a home in one another.

            _Four. Three._

It’s amazing how two unlikely people, with all of the earth-bound and otherworldly odds against them, could very well be a perfect fit for one another.

_Two._

            Abbie snuggles closer to Crane, burrowing into the all-encompassing warmth radiating from every inch of his body, reveling in the comfort of it, in the familiarity of it, in the un-nameable, enigmatic connection she’s got with this man out of time, and releases a contented sigh, trailing her fingertips across the partially-obscured expanse of his chest. At the sudden contact, Crane glances down at her, his eyes filled with concern and an inherent need to make certain that she’s safe, that she’s comfortable…always putting her needs ahead of his. The moment he locks onto her gaze, his composure falters and he’s frozen, held there by her dazzling smile, his lips parted in surprise and confusion and for a moment, Abbie could swear that he’d stopped breathing.

            _One._

            Without even thinking about it, all common sense having fled her mind in favor of liquored-up nerve aroused by the intimacy of the moment, Abbie leans forward, curling her free hand into the tendrils of his disheveled, light brown hair, and gently presses her lips against his. Jovial cheers and fireworks erupt around them as the Times Square crowd reigns in the New Year, but Abbie and Ichabod hardly take notice. It’s nothing like those long-lost dreams she’d kept at bay in the back of her mind, none of that raw, heated passion, all tangled limbs and lips and teeth…instead, it’s soft and sweet, and it only lasts for a few seconds before Abbie is pulling back, releasing him slowly, the ghost of her kiss lingering on his lips as she slides her fingers out of his hair.

            When she looks at him, she expects to find a contented smile, perhaps even a hint of exultant complacency waltzing in his eyes, like the one she’s grown so used to seeing in duo with his playful smirks and teasing jests…she expects him to pull her close, to wrap his arms around her and kiss her, properly this time…what she _doesn’t_ expect is for Crane to bolt upright, looking absolutely stupefied, his eyes wide with incredulity as he recoils from her touch. She hadn’t misread the signs, she’s sure of it…but this is the exact opposite of the reaction she’d been hoping for. Abbie feels her cheeks growing very, very hot, feels the boost of confidence from the champagne draining from her bloodstream, only to be replaced with a cold shiver that twists its icy way down her spine, and a rush of adrenaline that makes the surface of her skin tingle and buzz. She licks her lips, marveling at the way Crane’s eyes closely follow the action, and tries, desperately, to reconnect her mouth with her brain.

            “That was,” Crane whispers, his voice thick with a sick combination of lust, sorrow, and confusion, and Abbie can’t stand to hear the rest of it…not right now…not when she can run away from it instead.

            “A mistake,” she interrupts hastily, covering her face with her hands and looking anywhere but at him. “Fuck, I’m so sorry, that was stupid…like, _really_ stupid, and I’m just…going to go…go to bed. Sorry. Goodnight.”

            Without another word, Abbie bolts from the couch and slips behind her bedroom door, shutting it a little harder than she’d meant to. Crane listens for the telltale thump that means she’s slumped against the other side and is now slowly sliding down its length. He contemplates going after her, knocking on her door and pleading that she speak to him, that she hear him out…but he isn’t entirely certain as to what he would say once he found himself outside of her door. So he just stays put, absolutely dumbfounded and struck speechless. He doesn’t move for another hour at least, staring at the swirling patterns on Abbie’s living room ceiling, at the bits of textured paint that have fallen down and left miniature patches in their wake. Finally, at half past one, he comes to his senses, shuts off the television, places the nearly-empty bottle of champagne in the fridge, and retreats to his room. He doesn’t sleep well that night…in fact, he doesn’t sleep at all.


	15. When The Morning Breaks Us

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Cause you always want what you’re running from / And you know this is more than you can take / Cause you always want what you’re running from / And it’s always been that way / Baby, don’t forget my name when the morning breaks us / Baby, please don’t look away when the morning breaks us / Of your touch, so bittersweet / Baby, don’t forget my name when the morning breaks us_ **— Bittersweet • Ellie Goulding**

            The first thought that crosses Abbie’s mind upon waking is that she’s completely and utterly screwed. Sunlight, bright and blinding, pours through her bedroom curtains, a not-so-gentle reminder that it’s officially morning, that last night hadn’t merely been a good dream gone sour, and that eventually, she’s going to have to leave the cozy comfort of her bed and confront Crane about what had happened between them last night. Abbie wishes that she could just blame it all on the champagne, but the truth is, she hadn’t had nearly enough to warrant making such a stupid mistake, in spite of the faint drumming inside her head, along with the delicate thrum of water-starved blood coursing through the veins behind her eyelids, teasing the promise of a hangover. Abbie pulls the covers up over her head, rolls over onto her stomach, and buries her face in between her pillows, groaning miserably as she tries, desperately, to find the will to get out of bed.

            Careful to avoid the loosened, creaking floorboards, Abbie creeps toward her bedroom door, wondering if Ichabod is already awake and pottering about the apartment…if he’d even slept at all. Then again, the guy’s practically got super-human hearing, so it hardly matters if she makes any noise…he’ll likely already know that she’s up for the day. _He’ll probably even have your morning coffee ready and waiting for you,_ she muses with a guilty jolt to her heart. Abbie sighs, slides on her slippers, pulls a fuzzy, dark purple bathrobe overtop her pajamas, and slowly, carefully, opens the door, wincing at the agonizingly loud grating noise that it makes as it scrapes across the hardwood floor. Her eyes grow wide as she spots Ichabod, hunched over a breakfast tray in the living room, quietly sipping his morning tea. He stirs at the intrusive sound, locking eyes with Abbie’s for just a moment before she’s bolting to the bathroom and locking the door behind her. Within seconds, she’s got the shower running on full blast, drowning out Crane’s long, sorrowful sigh on the other side of the door.

 

• • •

 

            Ichabod stands at the kitchen island, stirring a perfect blend of milk, cream, and sugar into Abbie’s morning coffee, before setting the mug on a breakfast tray, filled with plates of freshly-flipped chocolate chip pancakes, scrambled eggs with a generous helping of cheddar and mozzarella cheeses mixed in, and a small side of bacon, burnt to a crisp, just the way Abbie likes it. After countless hours of lying motionless on his bed throughout the night, eyes boring into the ceiling as though it’ll unravel and reveal a simple set of answers to all of his problems, Ichabod had finally decided that enough was enough, and had gotten up, decided upon making Abbie a pick-me-up breakfast, a peace offering of sorts, to let her know that what she’d done last night was perfectly fine (and, he now realizes, _wanted_.) It had taken him far too long to sort everything though, to let go of the foolish notion that it would somehow be disrespectful to his late wife, were he to act upon his affections for another woman.

            It’s what Katrina would have wanted for him, after all…to move on from her, to find love in the comfort of someone else’s embrace…and it wasn’t like Abbie was just _any_ woman…no, Abbie was _so much more_ than just another seemingly random person whose path he had happened to cross…she was clever and wise and selfless and brave…she was his partner in crime, his companion in the upcoming battle against the forces of hell, his other half in the tragic role they, the chosen witnesses, must play. In this strange, mad world, Abbie is _everything_ to him, and he’s honestly surprised, and a little bit disappointed in himself, for having not realized it sooner, for having not taken notice that he’d already fallen so very, very hard for her, long before she’d ever kissed him. A furious blush creeps into his cheeks at the memory, and he nearly drops his delicacy-laden tray, carefully balanced on one hand, with the intent of bringing her breakfast in bed.

            He’s about to knock, to request entrance to her bedroom, his balled-up fist poised at the ready, when he hears a disgruntled groan from the other side of the door, indicating that she is most definitely not in an amicable mood, nor willing to be placated with food, and thinks better of it, backing away in cowardice and setting Abbie’s breakfast on the coffee table. Ichabod settles onto the couch with his steaming cup of herbal tea, taking slow, quiet sips as he practices what he’s going to say to her, running every possible string of lines through his mind, mouthing them out loud, and then shaking his head when the words that spill from his lips disagree with the tangled mess of emotions swimming about inside his head.

            When she finally does emerge from her bedroom, it’s only for a split-second, her expression a perfect impression of the clichéd deer-caught-in-the-headlights, the moment Ichabod’s gaze finds hers. And then, without warning, she’s sprinting into the bathroom and locking the door behind her, intent upon stalling their interaction for as long as she possibly can. Ichabod sighs, sinking back into contemplation, far too nervous and jittery to even think about touching his own plate of breakfast. Twenty minutes later, Ichabod hears the water switch off, hears Abbie stumbling about the bathroom, brushing her teeth and gargling with her (in _his_ opinion, overpoweringly minty) mouthwash, all the while waiting for the telltale _click_ of the bathroom door, signaling that it’s okay for him to approach. He places his empty teacup on the coffee table and saunters over to the hallway in between her bedroom and bathroom doors, promptly waiting for her, his posture ramrod straight, hands held in twisting knots behind his back.

            Abbie strolls out of the bathroom, humming along to a soft, celestial piece from the Nutcracker Suite that’s been playing on repeat inside her head since Christmas, and gasps, clutching her chest in panic as her eyes fall on Crane’s tall, lanky figure, standing just outside her bathroom door. In a last-ditch effort to run from her responsibilities, Abbie makes a mad dash to her bedroom, but Crane is far too quick, far too graceful, and within seconds, he’s got her cornered, fixing her with an imploring stare.

            “I…” he starts, a quiver to his voice that Abbie has learned to associate with what she likes to call _Caffeinated Crane_ , wired on too many energy drinks. “I’ve made you breakfast.”

            “Um…thank you,” she says, tone softening infinitesimally. “But I’m not really all that hungry. Sorry…um…I’ll just go, and…”

            “That’s fine,” he counters. “We can just…talk, then.”

            Abbie’s forced smile falters as she purses her lips, refusing to look directly at him.

            “Crane, can we _please_ not do this right now? I’m not…I’m not _decent_ ,” she warns, tugging at the hem of her robe, suddenly made uncomfortably aware of the fact that she’s got nothing but a bra and panties on underneath her fuzzy violet robe. Without his permission, Crane’s eyes follow the delicate curve of her exposed thighs, all the way down to her scarlet-painted toenails, his lips slightly parted, breath hitching for a fraction of a second, before snapping out of it and immediately fixating on her eyes.

            “If it makes the situation any less awkward, all I am wearing underneath this bathrobe that, apologies, I seem to have stolen from you, is a pair of cotton pajama bottoms. Unfortunately, the unkempt mess of hair on my chest and stomach does very little to shield my bare skin from view. In my era, the both of us would have been deemed quite naked, and thus, inappropriately dressed…therefore, I suppose we are, as you would say, _even_ ,” he replies, the tiniest hint of a tremble lurking underneath his voice.

            “It doesn’t, but thanks for trying,” she deadpans, clutching her robe tighter around her chest. In fact, it only serves to make the situation _that much worse_. Unfortunately for Abbie, Crane is stubborn and resolute, determined to remain right where he is until she agrees to talk to him. He swallows back a bought of nervous laughter, stealing shameless, covert glances at an image he’ll likely never be fortunate enough to witness ever again, taking note of the tiny moles and freckles that decorate the skin stretched across her collarbones, the way her hair splays across her shoulders in a tangled river of curls, at war with the residual chemicals in the products that had tried their damnedest to straighten them, the way the water trickles down the surface of her skin, painting wet patches against the fabric of her bathrobe. Abbie chances a glance at him, gives him a wounded look, before huffing out a vexed, impatient sigh.

“I…okay, you’re not going to let me out of this, are you?” she asks, the temper in her voice rising like a storm. “I’m sorry, okay? I really am. I misread the signs…I was drunk and I made a mistake, and…I know, that’s no excuse, because it was totally out of line, and really stupid, and if I could go back in time and take it back, I would…but I can’t. All I can do is assure you that it will never happen again…so can we _please_ forget about it now?”

            The words come tumbling out of her mouth in a cascade of clandestine, emotional bruises, ones he hadn’t even realized she’d been carrying until now, irrevocably etched in the downward curve of her lips as she silently pleads with him to just _let this go_ , to forget that something so personal, so intimate, had ever happened between them, as though it were easy, the disheartening promise of _it won’t ever happen again_ piercing his skin like the points of a thousand needles. He simply won’t allow it…won’t allow either of them to feel like this, to suffer in the interest of a misguided sense of self-preservation and intangible, antiquated terms of what it means to be honorable…not anymore.

            “No,” he says, a surge of confidence racing through his veins as he steps toward her. “Enlighten me, _Lieutenant_ , for I am curious, and, consequently, altogether baffled at my own mind for having taken such great measures to prevent the true desires of my heart from being heard. For some reason unbeknownst to me, the only concept that seems to trouble me is why you think it would be, in your own words, _out of line and stupid_ , to have kissed me last night?”

            The little self-satisfied, teasing and taunting smirk that spreads across his lips at that last line is enough to send her over the edge.

            “Where do I even _begin_ , Crane?” Abbie asks, her features growing dark and dangerous, voice rising in volume with every word. “You’re a man from the 1700’s who fought alongside George Washington in the Revolutionary War…you took battle axe wounds to the chest from a headless horseman, who just happens to be death itself, apparently, and lived to tell the tale. Actually, no, you _did_ die, but you were resurrected and buried in an underground crave for two hundred and fifty years. And as if that isn’t enough to warrant both of us a one-way ticket to the nuthouse, you and I are somehow connected by some magical, biblical tie, making us capital-W witnesses in the impending apocalypse. Oh, and then there’s the fact that you’re _married_ …to a self-sacrificing sorceress who used to be part of a _scarily powerful_ coven…or you _were_ , I guess…I honestly don’t even know anymore…it’s all way too complicated for me to digest, even after months of living with you, working case after case with you, spending nearly all of my free time with you, and not even because I felt like I had to, but because I _wanted_ to…because, for some, fucked up reason, I started to…” Abbie trails off, steadies her breathing, and shakes her head, swallowing back a small sob until it’s merely a painful lump in the back of her throat.

            “Regardless, it just…it would never work,” she says, her voice a mere whisper now, an echo of what it was just moments before. Ichabod pauses, lips poised on the edge of his next clever string of words, mulling them over inside his head, choosing them with delicate care.

            “Yes,” he says softly. “I suppose, to any normal person, those facts would be quite troubling. But you and I do not exactly fit the definition of normal, do we? You are exceedingly extraordinary, Miss Mills. So extraordinary, in fact, that you have been chosen as a witness to the beginnings of the potential end of days…and you and I are the only ones who can prevent its course. I am alone in this strange new land, Lieutenant, save for you. You are the only tether that I have to this world that keeps me sane. Katrina is at rest now, and I have made my peace with it. Yes, some part of me will always love her, and there will always be a place for her in my heart, but I cannot battle any longer with the indisputable reality that you do now as well. The only _stupid_ course of action would be to deny it, even if neither of us have the faintest clue as to what could become of it. Alas, we should not allow fear of the unknown to hold us back from what we desire. All that I know and hold to be true is the fact that _you_ are here with me now, and despite the oddities and hardships cloaking the mad world into which I have been gracelessly thrown, I would not see myself removed from it if it meant leaving you behind.”

            Abbie’s breathing stills, heart thrumming an uneven rhythm in her chest as her blood pulses through her veins, heating the surface of her skin until she’s glowing red, every nerve ending in her body lighting up like a live wire.

            “Crane,” she says, but it comes out more like a whisper, like a euphoric sigh, and before she can say anything more, he’s closed the space between them, wrapped his arms around her waist, and pulled her in for a soft, sweet kiss, swallowing the rest of her words with a stifled moan as he presses his lips against hers, gently backing her into the corridor until they’re pressed up against her bedroom door. Not wanting to waste a single second, Abbie slides her hands up the length of his arms, curls her fingers into his hair, unfastening his ties and letting it fall loose against the curves of his face, before weaving them underneath the thick fabric of his robe, fingertips tracing intricate patterns across his bare skin.

            “ _Cold_ ,” he gasps into her mouth, chuckling softly as Abbie takes the opportunity to slide her tongue along the edge of his lower lip, earning another soft, low moan.

            “Oh, but don’t worry,” he growls, teasing a trail of kisses from her neck to her collarbones, connecting the constellations of her freckles and moles with his lips. “I’ll soon fix that.”

            Without another word, Crane tucks his hands underneath her thighs, fingertips gently digging into her skin as he lifts her up, and Abbie follows suit, wrapping her legs around his waist, pulling him closer, arms laced around his neck as he carries her across the threshold, bedroom door closing with a resounding _click_ as they slip through to the other side.

            They never do make it to breakfast.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I’m about 80% certain that this is the last chapter I’ll be writing for this particular series. Maybe more like 75%. Or 50%. I don’t know. We’ll see what happens. Especially with the season one finale right around the corner. (I mean, I could always add a companion piece, maybe a coda where Jenny moves in ~~and starts dating Frank Irving~~ and literally cannot handle Abbie and Ichabod's playful teasing and bickering and their grossly adorable couple-ness…who knows?)
> 
> A big, gigantic thank you with lots of hugs and kisses to everyone who read and commented! I literally would not have had the drive to complete this as fast as I did without all of your support. Our ship is lovely and gorgeous (and, let’s face it, will probably be canon endgame) and we’re part of one of the best fandoms out there :)


	16. Valentine's Day (Coda)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How could I resist writing a coda?

            No less than a fortnight after New Year’s Day, the papers filing for Jenny’s release had gone through ( _it really helps, having a cop for a sister_ ,) and she’d immediately moved into the apartment with Abbie and her partner in crime, Mr. Tall, Dark, and British. Jenny, having totally called it from the start, merely threw back her head in laughter and said, _it’s about damn time_ , when Abbie had told her that they were officially dating. Crane, ever the gentleman, had graciously offered up his bedroom to her, and had taken to sleeping on the couch, keeping what few belongings he possessed in a small corner of the living room (though it hardly mattered, given the fact that he spent every other night in Abbie’s bedroom, anyway…Jenny wishes she could say that her noise-cancelling headphones actually work…but hey, if this date goes well, who knows? Maybe she’ll finally have the chance to get them back.)

            She’s just stepping out of her bedroom and heading toward the living room, when she hears the telltale sound of hushed giggling coming from the other side of the couch. More than a few times over the past month, Jenny had caught Crane sneaking out of Abbie’s bedroom at some ungodly hour of the morning, clad in nothing more than one of Abbie’s fuzzy, embarrassingly short (well, at least, on _his_ pale, hairy legs) bathrobes, to grab a fresh pair of pants…but this, by far, is _so much worse_. When Jenny peeks around the side of the couch, it’s to find Crane wrapped around her sister, one hand weaving through the strands of her hair, the other creeping under the hem of her shirt, both of them making out and grinding against each other like a couple of horny high school kids with nothing to lose. And, because this truly _is_ a nightmare come alive, Jenny is almost certain that she just saw tongue.

            “I could say ‘get a room,’ but I doubt it’ll even make a difference,” Jenny teases, hovering above them with her arms crossed over her chest, one threatening eyebrow raised in faux disgust and amusement at having caught them in the act. Jenny can’t help but burst out laughing as Crane immediately bolts upright, his eyes growing comically wide as he shifts all the way to the other side of the couch, and perches on his hind legs like a disgruntled bird. Abbie, on the other hand, isn’t the slightest bit fazed, propping herself up on her elbows, swiping the back of her hand across her lips, and giving Jenny a sheepish smile.

            “ _What_?” Abbie whines. “It’s Valentine’s Day…leave me alone, I’m entitled to this.”

            Crane dithers about for a moment, torn between an antiquated sense of nobility and the desire to adhere to this century’s customs on courting, before leaning forward, one finger held up in the air in surrender as he tries to get back on Jenny’s good side.

            “I am _terribly_ sorry for what you have just witnessed, Miss Jenny. I can imagine that it might be scarring for you to have caught your sister and her lover in such a compromising—”

            “Ew,” Jenny quips, holding up a hand to stop him. Ichabod immediately falls silent, embarrassment coloring his features.

            “Save it, Crane. It’s cool. I don’t actually care,” she says, waving off his concerns. “Plus, it’s not like I’m gonna have to see it for too much longer, anyway.”

            “Oh?” Ichabod asks, perking up. “You’ve got plans for the evening, have you?”

            “Yeah, Irving’s taking me out,” she says, casually shrugging it off like she hasn’t been looking forward to it all week.

            “Oh, so _that’s_ why you’re all dolled up tonight,” Abbie teases. “I wondered about the dress…which is _mine_ , by the way…so thanks for asking before you stole it out of my closet. Some things never change, I guess.”

            “Red always looked better on me, anyway,” Jenny ripostes, smirking.

            “So, are you guys, like…official, then?” Abbie asks.

            “Maybe,” Jenny drawls, hiding a small smile. “We’ll see how this date goes…but let’s just say…there’s a pretty good chance I won’t be coming back home tonight.”

            “Okay, now it’s _my_ turn to be grossed out,” Abbie laughs, while Crane, not quite understanding Jenny’s implication, looks back and forth between the two sisters, one eyebrow quirked in confusion.

            “Oh _please_ ,” Jenny retorts. “I hardly think we’re even in that category…at least, not _yet_.”

            “Hey, I never said you could invite _my boss_ over here for your weird, nasty hanky-panky,” Abbie argues. Crane mouths the words _hanky-panky_ , posing them as a question as he looks toward Abbie for an explanation. Abbie wiggles her eyebrows suggestively, giving Crane a lascivious smile, and that’s all it takes before he’s nodding in sudden understanding, the tips of his ears turning an impossible shade of red.

            “Okay, but you _also_ never said that I _couldn’t_ ,” Jenny counters with a sly smile. “Plus, I live here now, too. I’ve got just as much say as you do. And anyway, I deserve it, after all the stuff I’ve had to put up with from you two and your little… _nighttime escapades_.”

            “Nope,” Abbie quips, popping the _p_ for full effect. “My apartment. My boyfriend. _My rules_.” Abbie stares down her sister’s playful pout with a smug smirk, too intent on reveling in the comfort and familiarity of their lighthearted banter to catch the little flare of a smile that spreads across Ichabod’s lips at the word _boyfriend_ , or the way he tries to hide his contentment in that little downward cast of his eyes. Jenny doesn’t miss it, though, and, in spite of herself, can’t help the smile that forms as a result.

            “Anyway,” she says, rolling her eyes and lightly kicking the back of the couch with the tip of her cherry red heels. “You guys got any Valentine’s Day plans… _dare I even ask_?”

            “Honestly, we’re probably just gonna order some takeaway and watch cheesy romantic comedies all night.”

            “Right,” Jenny teases. “I’m sure I know how _that_ ’ll end.”

            “With lots of cuddling and hot cocoa, I should hope,” Crane chimes in, offering Abbie the palm of his hand, which she graciously accepts, entwining her fingers with his and rubbing small circles across the surface of his skin with the pad of her thumb.

            “Ugh,” Jenny scoffs, rolling her eyes in mock revulsion. “You guys are _gross_. I’m leaving…all of this cutesy romantic crap is making me sick.”

            “Oh, you _love it_ ,” Abbie laughs, wrapping her arms around Crane’s neck and pulling him back down beside her.

            “Yeah, whatever…but remember, dear sister, payback’s a bitch,” Jenny says, giving her an animated wink before shrugging on her jacket.

            “Don’t wait up for me!” she calls on her way to the kitchen, curling back the curtains and biting back a smile at the image of Frank Irving strolling up toward the apartment complex. She slings her purse over her shoulder and twists the doorknob, but just before she leaves, Jenny overhears the end of a conversation that makes her want to scrub out her brain with bleach.

            “That’s _your_ dress?” Ichabod whispers from the other side of the couch, peppering every few words with a soft trail of kisses. “I’ve never seen you wear it…and I think I would remember a dress like that.”

            “That’s _probably_ because you already had it off well before your eidetic memory even had a chance to retain it. And besides, you were far too focused on… _other things_ …to take proper notice,” Abbie giggles, her voice low and salacious.

            “ _Oh_. Well, I suppose that’s true,” Ichabod says, laughing along with her, before swallowing the rest of her words in a kiss. Jenny makes a face as she closes the apartment door behind her, resolving to keep the dress _on_ if things do go well with Irving tonight… _just to spite them._


End file.
